


Don't Panic

by redspottywellies



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Female Remus Lupin, Female Sirius Black, Grief/Mourning, Kid Fic, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Raising Harry, References to Torture, acknowledgement that Dumbledore is Flawed with a capital F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2018-09-28 02:22:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10066109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redspottywellies/pseuds/redspottywellies
Summary: "So you're telling me that you've not only lost Harry Potter, but that he's currently in the hands of a traitor and a deserter?""Sending Hagrid alone was an oversight, I admit."AKA Yet Another Sirius and Remus Raise Harry AU only they're both women now bc fuck it





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Things you should know:  
> \- This is based off that one tumblr post, will put a link in once I've found it, promise  
> \- Updates will not be consistent but have the entire story planned out so am cautiously optimistic (then again, I've got my entire Merlin Modern AU planned out as well and look how that's going).  
> \- Remus swears a lot because you're gonna have to pry that headcanon from my cold, dead hands.  
> \- Both of them are women bc I felt like it  
> \- I've made up a bunch of order members because pretty much everyone in the organisation was in St Mungo's or the ground by this point in the canon, they're all basically unmentioned relatives of existing characters bc why not  
> \- It's been a while since I've interacted with a one year old so expect a couple of inaccuracies re: Harry's development (e.g. can one year olds talk at all? Who knows, this one can form words, but then he's also a wizard. I feel like there's some wriggle room here).

Sirius let out a stream of curses under her breath as she charged up the stairs to her flat, clutching the bundle of Harry and blankets to her chest and praying he didn’t start crying until they were inside the noise-cancelling wards.

As if he’d read her mind and decided he wasn’t in the mood for discretion, Harry started grizzling.

“Hush, Harry, please hush,” Sirius whispered into the top of his head as she rounded another corner, trying her best not to jostle him.

Harry settled a little at the sound of her voice and didn’t descend into full-blown wailing, but he was sniffling by the time they made it to Sirius’ door, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Sirius chanted, fumbling with her keys in the lock and shouldering the door open, slumping with relief once they were in the flat and behind the protective barrier of spells.

She shut the door quietly so as not to startle him, checked the perimeter, and finally plonked herself down on the ratty couch, moving Harry around until he was lying in her lap with his head by her knees and his feet pressing into her stomach. She unwrapped the blankets and checked him over, praying he hadn’t been injured this whole time without her noticing – but no, he was fine, except for the fresh scar snarling across his forehead. She’d done her best with the healing spells she could remember back at Godric’s Hollow, but she’d been rushing, anxious that Hagrid would regain consciousness and try and stop her again. She’d managed to stem the bleeding, at least. It was alarming to look at on such a tiny face, but there wasn’t much she could do about it at this point.

Harry started squirming and whinging under her frantic examination, obviously sensing how terrified she was and getting scared himself.

“Sorry, sorry,” Sirius said, forcing herself to calm down and handle him more gently. She wrapped him back up in his blankets, aware that the flat was freezing and damp, but made sure to leave him room to wriggle around and move his legs. “You’re okay,” she said again, lifting him up again and holding him close. “We’re okay.”

Harry sniffed and nuzzled into her shoulder. “Pa’foo,” he mumbled in his little piping voice. “’Kay.”

“That’s right,” Sirius said. “Everything’s okay.”

Harry shifted in her arms and turned his head, blinking as he looked around the dingy room. “Mum?” he asked.

Something went in Sirius’ chest and she was abruptly fighting back tears. She leaned him away from her so she could look into his face. “Mummy’s not here, Harry, I’m sorry.”

Harry appeared to process this. “Dad-dad,” he said firmly. If Lily wasn’t here, then James would have to be. One of them was always near. That was how things worked.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius repeated, her voice cracking. “He’s not here either. They’re gone, Harry, they’re both gone.”

The top of Harry’s nose crinkled into a tiny frown. Clearly, his godmother didn’t understand how things worked. “Dad-dad,” he said again.

Very suddenly, Sirius was sobbing, unable to hold back what she’d been forcing down ever since she’d landed outside the Potter’s house, seen the roof caved in, seen the look on Hagrid’s face, realised what she’d done…

For Harry, already confused, overwhelmed and exhausted, this was far too much. He started to howl.

* * *

 When Sirius came back to herself, she had a pounding headache, a crusty face, and a damp patch on her shirt where Harry was bawling into her chest, his little starfish hands clenched with the effort and his whole body shaking in her arms.

“Oh no, oh Harry,” Sirius choked out, lifting him away slightly to look at him. His face was red and covered in snot and tears, but he calmed down a little when he registered that Sirius had mostly stopped crying, moving from full-blown wailing to little hiccups and whimpers. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m sorry…”

Harry sniffed hard. “Mummy,” he said again, voice wobbling. “Mummy.”

Sirius managed to stop herself from losing it this time, but it was a close thing. A few more tears spilled down her cheeks and she wiped them away hurriedly. “Come on,” she said gently. “We’ll find some tissues, and then you can have a sleep, and then we’ll figure out what to do, alright?”

Harry didn’t reply, but he allowed Sirius to hoist him onto her hip and held on tight while she stood up on shaky legs, moving carefully over to the edge of the room where her possessions were piled up, along with several months’ worth of the detritus that came with living in shitty flat that one rarely had the time or energy to clean. There were no tissues, just an empty box that looked as if it had been home to a mouse at some point, and a dish cloth that she dropped hastily when she realised it was covered in dried blood. She couldn’t even remember if she’d used it for first aid after a mission, or if she’d just run out of tampons at some point and forgotten to bin it. Either seemed likely.

“Loo roll it is,” she sighed, and stumbled through to the bathroom.

She ran the hot tap until it was at its warmest (depressingly tepid) and wet a handful of paper so as to not make Harry think she was trying to sandpaper his face. He let her dab at his nose and cheeks until he decided he’d hand enough and started trying to squirm away again.

“Alright, alright,” Sirius mumbled. She dropped the paper in the toilet and dried him off with the end of her sleeve before tearing off another bunch of paper for herself. She didn’t bother wetting it, just blew her nose and dragged the back of her hand over her eyes until they stopped burning so much.

She tried to flush the loo roll down the toilet. The cistern sputtered weakly, letting out the smallest possible trickle of water, and the pipes groaned in protest.

“Not again,” Sirius sighed. “Merlin. We really can’t stay here.”

The reality of her situation was starting to set in. She was all alone with her dead best friend’s baby, in a grotty flat with dodgy heating and no insulation. She didn’t have any food left, any toys for Harry to play with – she didn’t even have _nappies_ , she realised with a sinking sensation in her stomach. She hastily lifted Harry up and sniffed, relieved when she found him still clean and dry.

“Small mercies,” she muttered, re-settling him on her hip. “Okay. We need a game plan.”

Harry yawned and laid his head on her shoulder, sucking his thumb and blinking sleepily.

“Right. You’re exhausted. Of course you are. You’re a one year old and this is the worst day of your life.”

Harry didn’t reply. He was already dozing off.

Sirius carried him back through to the main room and improvised a nest for him on the cleanest part of the sofa, dragging her bedding over from where it was crumpled on top of the dusty mattress she’d been sleeping on and shaking it out to make sure there was nothing gross stuck to it. She tucked Harry in and knelt next to him, stroking his hair the way she’d seen Lily do when she put him down for the night, murmuring nonsense and humming half-remembered lullabies. Soon enough, Harry was fast asleep, breathing deep and steady.

Sirius sat back on her heels and breathed out. She watched him for a little while. Then she dragged herself to her feet once more and started pacing quietly, twirling her wand between her fingers, trying to figure out her next steps.

Contacting the Order wasn’t an option, she decided. Even ignoring the fact that by now they would all be sure she was both a traitor and kidnapper, she couldn’t trust any of them not to immediately side with Dumbledore and hand Harry over to the muggles. At least she could be sure that they wouldn’t come looking for her here – the only people who knew her address were the other Marauders, and Lily. She’d received her assignments from Shacklebolt at various rendezvous points throughout the city, chosen at random, as was protocol. There were only two people left alive who knew where she was.

Peter wouldn’t come after her just yet. He probably didn’t even know that Harry was still alive, let alone with her. She knew the cowardly shit well enough to know that he was most likely off hiding somewhere in his other form, waiting for the air to clear so he could sneak away to safety. She fought down the urge to go and find him and rip his head off with her teeth – she could not, under any circumstances, let Harry out of her sight. She had to put him first. Revenge could wait for now.

Her mind moved on to Remus. Her last friend. Her ex-friend. They hadn’t spoken since their fight. Remus was currently under the impression that Sirius was a spy for the death eaters. Not just any spy, but one who’d accused Remus herself of being one.

She tried to remember what she’d been thinking at the time. All she could recall was a haze of paranoia and grief and exhaustion, and an easy target. She’d known Remus’ insecurities better than anyone, after all. The fear of rejection. The struggle to connect, to feel that sense of belonging.

There was a sour feeling in Sirius’ stomach. She stopped pacing and looked around the flat. A cockroach was climbing the wall opposite her.

She and Harry really, really, couldn’t stay here. She really, really needed help.

The spell was out of her mouth before she could think it all the way through.

“ _Expecto Patronum.”_

* * *

 

Remus took a drag of her cigarette and rubbed her forehead with the heel of her shaking hand.

“I’ve told you,” she said, fighting hard to keep her voice steady. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know what happened.”

“Are you _sure_ she didn’t say anything to you?” McGonagall pressed. “Anything at all, even something that may have seemed inconsequential-”

“I haven’t spoken to her in _months,”_ Remus growled, her voice rising. “The last time we talked, she accused me of being a spy for Greyback. I know you know this, because I fucking _told you when it fucking happened.”_

McGonagall didn’t respond. She simply watched Remus for a long moment, face blank in the half-light of the alleyway they’d met in.

Remus took another drag and exhaled carefully, trying to force her anger to dissipate along with the smoke. “Sorry, professor.”

“You’re in a tremendous amount of pain, so I will forgive your tone,” McGonagall said, almost kindly. “But it is crucial you understand that we can’t leave a single stone unturned. We need to find Harry and get him to his relatives. This is our priority above all else.”

“I don’t understand why. The war’s over, Snake-Fucker’s _dead_ , why do we have to-”

“I am sure you’re aware of the concept of a need-to-know basis, Miss Lupin.”

“ _Christ,”_ Remus grit out. She finished her cigarette, flicked it away, and jammed her hands in her pockets. “Just. Why does he have to go to _them?_ Does Dumbledore not realise… L-Lily…”

She broke off and tried to breathe through the pain as it lanced through her. McGonagall waited patiently.

“Lily told me about them,” Remus managed at last. “Her sister hates everything to do with magic, she never accepted Lily, and that Dursley cock – you should have heard some of the shit he said about James and Sirius, not just the magic, they’re fucking _racist_ , where the _fuck_ does Dumbledore get off putting Harry with those people? Professor, he won’t be _safe.”_

McGonagall pursed her lips at that, obviously worried. “I’ve done my best to discourage Albus from this course of action,” she said slowly. “I’ve been watching the Dursley family, and I agree that the decision to grant them custody is a poor one. However, there are certain factors – the protection provided by the blood bond-”

“No, fuck that,” Remus said. “Fuck that with the broken end of a bloody fucking broomstick. Professor. You can’t let Dumbledore do this to Harry. You can’t.”

The professor sighed. “There are much bigger things at play here. But I will do everything I can to convince Albus to think of something else. In the meantime – if you see or hear from Sirius Black, contact myself or another Order member immediately. She must be brought to justice.”

Remus fought back a wave of nausea at the thought of Sirius as a traitor, even with the memory of the fight still burning in the back of her mind. “Are we sure it was her?” she asked, her voice trembling a little. “That she was the one who…”

McGonagall looked at her sadly. “It is almost impossible for it to have been anyone else,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Remus took a deep breath in, and nodded. She turned on her heel and started to walk away, only to turn back when McGonagall spoke again.

“One more thing, Miss Lupin. There’s a chance that in all the confusion, Mr Pettigrew hasn’t been informed of what’s happened – he’s been lying especially low since his last assignment. I thought you should be aware of that, should you see him before anyone else does.”

With that, she disapperated.

Remus walked home slowly, trying to decide if she’d be able to handle telling Peter what had happened, actually saying the words out loud and seeing the look on his face. She still hadn’t come to a conclusion by the time she reached her flat.

She was so focused, she almost didn’t notice the patronus waiting next to the coffee table, lighting up the room with its silvery glow and causing Remus’ heart to leap into her throat.

“SHIT!” she yelped, automatically drawing her wand and dropping into a defensive stance, kicking the door shut behind her.

The patronus – Sirius’ dog, she realised dazedly, it was Sirius – looked towards her and immediately started speaking in Sirius’ voice.

_“Moony – Remus. I’m sorry for what I said last time we spoke, truly. And it wasn’t me who betrayed them, I swear on Uncle Alphard’s grave, I promise I can explain everything, Peter – fuck. But I did slightly kidnap Harry. Kind of. They were going to leave him with those people, and I just…_

_“I need help. I need you. We’re at my place. Please come.”_

The patronus dissipated into wisps and faded away, leaving the flat in darkness and Remus frozen where she stood.

Her hand twitched towards her wand, automatically moving to contact Dumbledore. Then she stopped and tried to figure out when it had become such a reflex for her to look to a wizened old man with an almost Dickensian tendency for dramatics before she could let herself make a decision.

She felt around on the wall behind her for the light switch and flicked it on, squinting in the sudden brightness. She wasn’t sure what to do with herself, so she lit another cigarette and went to sit on stained brown armchair that had come with the flat while she figured out her next steps.

Her eyes kept being drawn to the lunar calendar she’d hung on the wall. She still had the best part of two weeks before the next full moon.

 “Literally fuck this,” she said to the air. She dropped the cigarette butt into an old, half-drunk cup of tea on the table, and went to pack a bag.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- There is no way you can convince me that the Marauders didn't spend most of their downtime during the war coming up with stupid nicknames for Voldemort. Favourites include: Snake Fucker, Baldy, Sir Fuckface the Noseless, Tomethy, The Pale One, Mr Lizard, That Tosser What Thinks He's French, and Larry.


	2. Chapter 2

Sirius almost collapsed with relief when she heard Remus’ familiar knock and hurried over, wand in hand. She checked the peephole, enchanted to signal the presence of disguise or deception, and glanced back at Harry, who was still asleep. Then she opened the door.

Remus looked as bad as Sirius felt, pale and drawn and smelling strongly of those awful muggle cigarettes she favoured. Her battered backpack was slung over one shoulder, and her lip was bleeding where she’d been chewing it.

“My favourite singer?” Sirius asked out of pure habit.

“Celestina Warbeck, but you tell everyone it’s Alonzo Norris from the Unhappy Giants to save face,” Remus replied instantly. “My favourite album?”

“Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane when you’re sober, Rumours by Fleetwood Mac when you’re high because you’re an emotional little shit,” Sirius said, the well-practiced answer coming back to her easily.

“Fuck you, Stevie Nicks makes me feel things,” Remus said, like she said every time. She squeezed past Sirius into the flat and made straight for Harry while Sirius re-secured the door. “Shit. Is he okay?”

“He’s fine – it’s only his forehead that’s hurt and the bleeding stopped pretty fast, he’s not in any danger.”

Remus nodded, letting out a long breath. Then her jaw clenched. “Okay. In that case. What the ever living _fuck,_ Sirius?”

“Not so loud, don’t wake him,” Sirius warned in a low voice. “I’ve told you I can explain and I will, but you have to be quiet, Lily and Prongs have been having a lot of sleepless… nights…”

She trailed off and felt her face crumple. Remus made an aborted movement towards her in the corner of her eye but she waved her off, forcing herself back upright against the tidal wave of grief.

“Had been,” she corrected herself at last. “Not have. Had.”

Remus dropped her face into her hand, rubbing at her eyes with her finger and thumb. “Shit,” she mumbled again. “I came here meaning to stun you soon as I saw you. Everyone’s saying you did it.”

“And I’m saying I didn’t,” Sirius said. “Why haven’t you pulled your wand on me yet?”

Remus stared at her shoes. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Maybe I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I’m hoping you can explain why Peter was gone when I went by his place before I came here. No sign of a struggle. Spoke to McGonagall. No one’s heard from him.”

Sirius clenched her fists. “It was him,” she said, forcing her voice to stay quiet and even. “I convinced Lily and James to switch secret-keepers at the last minute, I thought he’d never be suspected over me. I thought they’d come after me. I didn’t want there to be anything for them to find when they did.”

“You’re telling me Peter was the secret-keeper?” Remus said slowly. “That he gave them up willingly?”

“I’m saying he’s been feeding information to the other side information for months. That he was the spy all along.”

Remus let out a short, angry laugh. “Merlin’s ballsack, you really don’t stop, do you? First me, now Pete-”

“No,” Sirius interrupted fiercely. “No. This is different. With you – I wasn’t thinking straight. I was paranoid beyond belief, I was fucking furious with the world, I was so tired of being terrified all the time, and you were. You were there. I’m not saying that’s an excuse, but… it was different. Now? Baldy’s dead. The death-eaters are in retreat. They’re being rounded up as we speak. We’re safer than we’ve been in years. And Pete still hasn’t surfaced.”

“How do I know you didn’t kill him?” Remus countered, moving so she was a barrier between Sirius and Harry, standing tense, ready to spring. “That you didn’t betray James and Lily, then do in Pete to make it look like he’s in the wind?”

Sirius felt like she’d been punched in the gut. “Fuck, Remus-”

“You need to prove me wrong,” Remus told her. “Priori incantatem. Right now.”

“I… yes. Yeah. That’ll work.” Sirius shifted her grip on her wand. She flipped it over in her hand and offered it, handle-first, to Remus. “You do it. That way you know I’m not just conjuring false images.”

Remus nodded, and took the wand. “Get your story straight,” she said. “Tell me what I’ll see.”

Sirius thought hard, casting her mind back. “The last spell I cast… that’d be the apparition out of Godric’s Hollow? No, wait – the patronus I sent you. The protective spells on the door when I got in. Before that, the apparition. Before that, the healing spells I did on Harry. Um. I stunned Hagrid when he tried to take him, that’ll show up.”

“I’m… I’ll ignore that for now. Who will it show if I ask it for the face of the last person you killed?”

“That Dolohov cousin from the skirmish outside Bedford last week,” Sirius said. “I don’t know if McGonagall showed you the report-”

“She did. Okay.”

Remus paused, and then started muttering the necessary words. Greyish wisps of smoke drifted out of the wand, the various symbols denoting different spells, fading away only to be replaced by more. The patronus. The protection spells. The healing spells. The stunning spell. Further and further back – past the Dolohov cousin’s face, past an Avery and two Lestranges from a few days before that, back and back and back into the wand’s history…

“What are you looking for?” Sirius asked.

“The last spell you did that involved Pete,” Remus mumbled, concentrating hard.

Sirius frowned, trying to remember what it would have been. It wasn’t until she heard an echo of her own voice that she realised.

_“In bona fides, secretus homini do.”_

Remus paused for a moment, then lowered the wand, staring at the last traces of smoke as they floated away.

“That was you passing on the secret, yeah? The fidelius charm.”

Sirius nodded. “It was the last time I saw him. He was frightened. I thought it was because he was afraid of failing James and Lily. I never – I never thought…”

She broke off, swallowing hard. Remus hesitated, and handed the wand back. Sirius took it and immediately stowed it away.

There was a long pause. Eventually, Sirius cleared her throat. “I really am sorry,” she said. “For accusing you like that. I knew how much it’d hurt you, and I did it anyway.”

Remus didn’t reply. When Sirius chanced a glance at her, it was to see her frowning hard, obviously trying to sort through some complicated emotions. “I was working on it,” she said at last. “I’d almost forgiven you like, yesterday. I was gonna write or something, but now...”

“But now?”

“Now – I don’t know. It’s a fucking mess again. Nothing’s clear cut. I’m still not – still don’t know if I believe you yet.”

“Then why aren’t you turning me in?”

Remus shrugged. “I figure the only reason I know for sure that you’re telling the truth is if I stick around. That and the fact that if it turns out you’re lying after all, I’ll be wanting to kill you myself, and I’ll need to be nearby for that.”

Sirius shivered. Before the war, Remus had always taken care to keep her hard edges hidden under tea and books and jumpers, despite her sharp wit and mildly intimidating level of creativity when it came to profanity. Even now, both of them battle-hardened and cynical, it was sometimes easy to forget how ruthless she could be.

“Okay,” Sirius said quietly. “Okay.”

“Also. This is the only way I can see of keeping Harry safe right now. Obviously he can’t go to the muggles-”

“Glad someone’s seeing sense-”

“I think McGonagall’s got doubts as well, she said she’d talk to Dumbledore.”

Sirius raked a hand through her hair. “Good. We might be able to use that later.”

“Yeah. But for now, I reckon first thing is to get Harry out of here, they’re probably already closing in on us. Also, not being funny but this place is fucking disgusting, like, I don’t know if that stuff on the floor there is marmite or tar or what-”

“Nail varnish, I think. And it’s not like yours was ever much better,” Sirius muttered defensively. “But you’re right. We need to move him, get him out of London. So where do we go?”

Remus stared upwards, thinking. “Any of your relatives got a holiday house standing empty? Rich people do that, yeah? Just like, whole extra houses out in the country or abroad or whatever.”

Sirius shifted uncomfortably, thinking of long childhood summers in the south of France and winters in Switzerland. “None that won’t be neck-deep in wards to keep the likes of us out. A blood traitor and two half-bloods? No chance we’d get over the threshold.”

“Figures. I reckon we start off picking a place at random then, maybe find a hostel for now and sort something more permanent later, once the Order’s calmed their shit.”

“Give them a chance to notice where Pete’s gone and work out what actually happened,” Sirius agreed. “How do we pick?”

“Got a map and a dart?”

“I’ve got…” Sirius started, moving across the room to rummage through her belongings. “A t-shirt from the Eli Imperius UK tour with a map of venues on the back, and… a loose button that’s got a bit sticky.”

Remus considered this for a moment, and nodded. “Yeah, that’ll do.”

* * *

 

“Absolutely downright irresponsible!” Molly Weasley hissed. Her furious presence dominated the makeshift war-room, even while clad in a fluffy pink dressing gown. “You’re saying you’ve not only lost Harry Potter, but that he's currently in the hands of a traitor and a deserter?”

“Sending Hagrid alone was an oversight, I admit,” Dumbledore said. “How is he, by the way?” he added, glancing over at Madam Pomfrey, who was squeezed between Kingsley Shacklebolt and Harriet Vance on the sofa, rubbing her eyes and clutching a mug of heavily stewed tea.

“He’s fine,” she said shortly. “Aside from the fact that he’s passed out on the kitchen floor, that is. Black put a lot of force behind the stunner, probably would have done serious damage on someone smaller, but he’s just unconscious.”

“Still?” Dedalus Diggle asked, confused. “How did he get here if he’s still stunned?”

“We went to the scene when he didn’t appear at Privet Drive,” McGonagall said. “We found him on the ground next to Black’s motorbike and had to apparate away with him before the muggle authorities could arrive and start asking questions.”

“Why hasn’t anyone woken him up? It’s a simple enough spell-”

“If you want to be the one to tell him he failed his mission and deal with the ensuing emotional outburst, be my guest,” Pomfrey snapped. “But I for one am too tired to deal with eleven feet of anxious sobbing and self-deprecation, so you can just-”

“Alright,” McGonagall barked. “Tensions are running high, but there’s no need be jumping down one another’s throats.”

“Quiet down, all of you,” Molly growled. “I can’t stop Arthur offering up my living room as your blasted organisation’s headquarters, but if you wake my children, there’s nothing to stop _me_ sending you right back to your hidey-holes until such a time as you decide to learn a little courtesy.”

“My apologies, Molly,” Dumbledore said smoothly. “I assure you, this is only a temporary measure. Ah – forgive me, but where is your husband, exactly?”

“He’s calming Percy down, George put a slug in his pillowcase and the poor dear’s terrified of things that can move without walking.”

Dumbledore seemed unsure what to do with this information, but he nodded anyway. “Quite.”

“Back to the matter at hand,” McGonagall said, shooting Dumbledore a look. “With regard to Harry’s situation once we track them down-”

“The boy will go to his aunt and uncle, as planned,” Dumbledore said firmly. “He will be safest with family.”

“Albus. That is blatantly untrue,” McGonagall replied. “I’ve been watching those people, I’ve been collecting outside opinions. By all accounts, they are by far the least equipped to care for Harry in the necessary capacity – muggles, and magic-haters on top of that, and that’s even before you consider how they’ll treat Harry based on his ethnicity-”

“The protection he will receive by way of houseroom provided by his last surviving blood relative will surely outweigh any drawbacks,” Dumbledore countered. “My good people, I cannot stress enough to danger Harry Potter is still in. At this point, my primary motive is _keeping the child alive.”_

“With respect, professor,” Ursula Shacklebolt said from where she was perching on the windowsill next to Caitriona Murray. “You are unaware of the sheer depth and pervasiveness of the bigotry on which muggle society in this country is built. This course of action may keep the child alive, yes. But at what cost? These people will raise him to despise everything he is, everything he came from. You're a smart man, Albus. You must see that sending Harry to his aunt is not an option. You must find another way.”

Dumbledore steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair with a frown. “All this is immaterial if we cannot find the boy,” he said after a few moments. “Alastor and his team are still searching out the last of the Death Eaters, but they are on the lookout. Is there anything new from Mr Bones’ team?”

“Not since they spoke to Andromeda Tonks,” Eleanor Johnson said, checking her watch. “They were headed back to the city next – their owl is due in around twenty minutes.”

“And Andromeda had no insight into her cousin’s whereabouts?”

“I believe her exact words were… ‘I haven’t seen that silly git since she got plastered and set a niffler loose at my wedding reception, now get off my lawn before I hex you into the next millennium’. Harriet and I are planning on going back once the sun’s up, she might be more amicable when she’s not being woken up in the wee hours by an attempted home invasion.”

“Very good,” Dumbledore nodded. He pulled a wooden box out from his robes and placed it on the table. “I would like the rest of you to start actively searching. In this box are some sneakoscopes I’ve modified to specifically alert the presence of our two fugitives, and some small personal possessions, which I have enchanted with a tracking spell. Divide yourselves into pairs - start with London and then work outwards through the major cities. I’d advise focusing on public areas, places one can take a small child without standing out. Work out who will go where amongst yourselves. Myself and Professor McGonagall will be interviewing possible accomplices, starting with Peter Pettigrew. Oh, and Poppy – I’d appreciate it if you could try and wake Hagrid. We’ll have need of him soon enough.”

Molly raised her eyebrows and put her hands on her hips.

“…Perhaps put a muffling charm over the kitchen first.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I've got an a level in latin and i still can't construct a proper sentence (the dative case is hard and my school was not the kind of school that was meant to be teaching classical languages) so if you're better at it than me and care about that kind of thing, soz
> 
> -Eleanor Johnson is Angelina Johnson's aunt. Harriet Vance is Emmeline Vance's sister. Ursula Shacklebolt is Kingsley Shacklebolt's sister. Catriona Murray is Seamus Finnegan's cousin on his mother's side. Henry Bones is Susan Bones' great uncle or something. There might be a few extra Longbottoms, Abbots and Macmillans turning up at some point.


	3. Chapter 3

"These ones, do you think? Or the ones on the end?"

"Sirius, it makes literally no difference, whatever you pick we can just modify 'til they fit him anyway, will you please just _make a decision so we can leave_."

"You need to calm down," Sirius said loftily, scooping up a few boxes of nappies and dumping them in the trolley. "There, what's next on the list?"

Remus shifted Harry so he was more firmly seated on her hip, and unfolded the crumpled napkin she'd scribbled the list on during their hasty breakfast at the café next to the train station. "Baby food, I guess? I don't know what kind. What do one year olds even eat?"

"Why in Merlin's name are you asking me?" Sirius asked, pushing the trolley off down the aisle towards the food section. "Soft stuff, I guess? But I'm pretty sure he's on proper food now, he was eating an egg last time I visited... anyway. Eggs. And more porridge? He seemed to like it back at the café."

"Sounds about right," Remus nodded, racking her brains for memories of what her aunt and uncle had fed her little cousins on the few occasions she'd seen them. "Maybe stuff like yoghurt and fruit as well - bananas, grapes, satsumas, stuff like that. We can put a suspension charm on it all so it doesn't go off."

"We'll need things for dinners as well - if we get some meat and vegetables will we have a way of cooking them?"

"If we can find a hostel with a kitchen, yeah. D'you reckon he'll eat pasta?"

"No idea. Oi Harry, do you like pasta?"

"Ba," Harry replied, chewing on his fingers.

"We'll have to expand the bag again." Sirius slowed down when they reached the breakfast aisle, picked up a few bags of porridge oats and tossed them onto the growing pile in the trolley.

"And a place to hide while we get all this shit inside it, can't be going full-on Mary Poppins in broad daylight outside the Asda in Urmston. Speaking of - Sirius, we really need to get a move on."

There was an older couple eyeing them from over by the muesli. The man grumbled something under his breath that sounded a lot like "deviants". The woman murmured in agreement. Remus shivered.

"What's the rush?" Sirius asked distractedly, scanning the rest of the cereal aisle for inspiration and not noticing any of this. Then she blinked and turned around, as if only just realising how on-edge Remus was. "Look, it's okay," she said, lowering her voice. "We've covered our tracks, no one's going to find us here."

"That's not what I meant," Remus said through gritted teeth, watching the couple pick up some boxes and move on to the next aisle. "It's just. How we look right now. People around here aren't... the attitudes - we don't fit. I mean, we're wearing leather jackets and _flannel_ for fuck's sake, we should've stayed in Liverpool or gone straight to Manchester-"

"Okay, you're making exactly no sense whatsoever right now," Sirius told her. "We agreed to stay out of the major cities as much as we could because that's where they'll be expecting us to be, yeah? We wouldn't even be going to Manchester if there were any hostels around here."

"Yeah," Remus agreed with a sigh, jigging Harry on her hip to try and stop him picking up on her anxiety. "Yeah. Just. We need to be careful, and probably change our clothes sooner rather than later."

"Why? I mean sure, you do sort of look like the lovechild of a librarian and a lumberjack, but _I_ look bloody fantastic."

"Fuck off, neither of us has slept in over twenty four hours, we both look like shit. How do you even know what a lumberjack is?"

"I think you'll find I have a vast array of knowledge spanning many-"

"Sirius."

"Right. It was on that weird show we watched with Li- we watched on the CCB  a few summers back, Minty Pylon or something."

"You mean the BBC, and it's _Monty Python_ , oh my god-"

"Whatever, now who's getting sidetracked? I thought we were in a huge rush to escape what I can only assume is a shop full of militant vegetarians, given your terror that we'll be attacked because of our jackets of all things-"

"You are way too used to London. Just - let's just finish up and get to Manchester before anyone tries anything, alright?"

Remus let out a long breath, ignoring Sirius' baffled, "tries what?", and readjusted Harry again, smiling at him reassuringly. She even managed not to grimace when he shoved a handful of her hair into his mouth.

* * *

It wasn't until later that Sirius finally clocked on.

"You were worried they'd think we were a couple!" she burst out suddenly, far too loud in the mostly-empty hostel foyer.

The guy manning the desk looked up, eyebrows raised. Remus glared daggers at Sirius.

"Look, it's alright," the man said. "We're not like them bible-bashers down the road, we don't deny entry based on... stuff like that. Kid friendly and all," he added, nodding at Harry in Sirius' arms. "Erm. So are you actually-"

"Two beds please, in an empty room if you've got one," Remus cut him off.

"Right, 'course," the man nodded hastily, flipping open a folder and flicking through to a blank page. "How many nights?"

"Just the one. Is there a kitchen?"

"Yeah yeah, nice and clean, working stove and all."

"Good. How much?"

Sirius moved back while Remus sorted out the money, fishing a plastic toy elephant out of her pocket and giving it to Harry, who looked like he was on the verge of starting to fuss. He made a happy noise and waved it around, almost clunking Sirius in the face.

"Aroo," he declared.

"That's right," Sirius nodded, feeling herself smile. "That's what an elephant says. Can you say elephant?"

Harry blinked at her.

"El-e-phant," she tried again, sounding out each syllable.

"Pant," Harry replied. "Arooo!"

"Alright, we'll work on that."

* * *

 _"Homenum_   _revelio."_

Nothing happened.

McGonagall lowered her wand and sighed. "There's no one here, Albus."

"That is apparent, yes," Dumbledore replied absently, walking through and scrutinising Pettigrew's empty hideout as if searching for a convenient note or something else that would immediately indicate his whereabouts. "Nothing out of place, either. You say no one has heard from him in over a week?"

"Not a word. So if he's been taken, he went quietly. That is... somewhat unsurprising. But I can't imagine the other side would bother holding onto him while their organisation is being decimated. The aurors have been through every known Death Eater hideout and no one has reported him found. So either he's dead..."

"Or he is also in league with Miss Black," Dumbledore finished. "If all this were under different circumstances, I'd comment on this group's impressive sense of loyalty."

McGonagall frowned. "That's something I haven't been able to let go of. If you'd told me even two days ago that Sirius Black would betray James Potter - her last remaining family, for all intents and purposes - I'd have laughed you right out of the building. None of this makes any _sense_ , Albus."

"If there's one thing we've learned, Minerva, it's that very little makes sense in a war."

"Hmm." McGonagall pursed her lips and looked around again. "I suggest we search the place once more and move on to other possible refuges."

"Agreed. We can charm the door to alert us, should he return."

"As long as the alert doesn't come in the form of a short folk ballad this time."

"Are you sure? I thought it added quite the light-hearted touch to the hunt for the Rowles. The aurors seemed to appreciate it."

"Until Alastor got it stuck in his head and started panicking about being enchanted by a fey bard, you mean."

"Until then, yes."

* * *

"I think that man at the desk was lying about the kitchen," Sirius said, sweeping a finger across the grimy counter top and grimacing at the trail of off-white it left in the discoloured surface.

"No shit," Remus grumbled from where she was bent over the stove, which was making a lot of alarming clicking sounds as she pressed buttons and twisted various knobs. "Stove's bust as well."

"Can you fix it?"

"Probably, with magic, if no one comes in. Take Harry and go make sure no one's hanging around in the corridor."

"Aye-aye." Sirius scooped up Harry from where she'd sat him in one of the chairs around the wobbly table and carried him over to look out of the kitchen door, which was not actually a door but a curtain made out of strings of beads, for reasons Sirius couldn't even begin to fathom. At least Harry seemed to like them, batting at the strings and giggling at the rattling noise they made.

"No one's there."

Remus didn't answer, but Sirius heard her start to mutter spells under her breath, accompanied by small clinking noises as the stove rearranged itself.

She stood and let Harry play with the beads until the sound of a door opening and approaching voices made her peek out of the doorway again.

"Someone's coming!"

"Motherfucking - alright, almost done."

There was a small knot of people coming down the hall, laughing and jostling each other. Behind her, Remus was still cursing, just barely audible over a series of loud clangs.

"Hurry up!" Sirius snapped, turning around, only to stop short  at the site of Remus calmly stirring a bubbling pot on the suddenly-functional stove. "How did you-"

"Come and sit down with Harry, his bib's in the front pocket of the bag. Are the concealing charms holding up?" Remus asked, tipping a jar of pasta sauce into a second pan with her free hand.

Sirius sat Harry on the table and checked quickly to make sure his scar was still hidden. "Yeah, all fine."

She was in the processes of negotiating Harry into wearing his bib when the people entered - three twenty-somethings, all with huge amounts of hair, arguing loudly and incomprehensibly. The only words Sirius could make out were 'milk-snatcher', 'tories' and 'absolute cunts', none of which made any sense to her but made Remus smirk.

"Oh my god, a baby! Rick, stop swearing in front of the bloody baby you twat!" one of the girls exclaimed, rushing over to coo over Harry. "Hiya, little one! Oh, he's adorable, is he yours?"

"Um," Sirius said, tightening her hold on Harry and shifting him away from the stranger a little. "No, he's my nephew. Just babysitting for the afternoon." 

"Pol, shove off - sorry about her," one of the others said apologetically, dragging her friend back. "She gets all excited around babies 'cause of her aching womb."

"Fuck off, I do not have an aching womb. Just look at that face, Sally. Look at it," the one now known as Pol said, pointing at Harry impatiently. "Look at that tiny adorable face."

"Stop scaring infants, Pol," said the other member of the group from the sink, where he was filling the kettle. "Here, how'd you get that stove working? We've been trying for days."

"Elbow grease," Remus mumbled, not looking up from her pans.

"Impressive. I'm Rick, by the way. That's Pol and Sally. Sorry in advance."

"Nice to meet you," Sirius said, mind going inconveniently blank as she tried to think of plausible aliases. She noticed the one called Sally was wearing a tartan skirt and heard herself blurt out, "Ah, I'm Kat. That's - Minnie, over by the stove. Minnie."

Remus scowled at her. Sirius ignored it.

"So, what you doing round here, then?" Pol asked, plonking herself down in the chair across from Sirius. "Visiting family?"

"I - yeah. My sister and her husband. We're just watching their kid so they can have a day off. Only they're having their day off in their very small flat, so we had to bring the kid back here and here we are, haha."

Remus shot her an odd look. So did the newcomers.

Sirius cleared her throat. "So what about you lot?"

"Oh, we just came to watch the footie yesterday, thought we'd stick around for a bit and see the sights before we head back to uni."

"Huh. Are you. Having fun?" Sirius asked stiltedly, absently trying to figure out when she'd gotten so bad at making conversation.

Remus finished with the stove and went over to the sink to drain the pasta, temporarily disappearing in a cloud of steam.

"Yeah we are, this is such a great city. Wish I'd come here for uni instead of Preston Polytechnic," Rick said from where he was making a cup of tea at the counter.

Remus came up behind Pol with three bowls of pasta balanced in her hands, and cleared her throat. "S'cuse."

Pol jumped, hand flying to her chest. "Christ, you scared the living daylights out of me! How'd you move so quietly?"

Remus shrugged and edged around her to set the bowls down on the table. Sirius pulled the one with the smallest portion towards her and manoeuvred Harry into his own chair so she could feed him.

"Aah, he's so sweet," Sally beamed, watching Harry reach for the spoon Sirius was using to cut up his pasta into more manageable sizes, only to start smearing sauce all over his face once he got hold of it. "How old is he?"

"One and a bit," Sirius said, taking the spoon back and scooping some food into Harry's mouth before he could get upset about it.

"Bloody adorable - his mum and dad must be so proud," Pol said.

Sirius opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. She clenched her jaw instead and carried on feeding Harry. Pol, obviously sensing a dead end, turned to Remus instead.

"So, Minnie - you must be good with your hands if you managed to get that stove working! We thought it was a goner, Sally was all set to make a complaint."

Remus, her mouth full of pasta, simply made a noncommittal noise and shrugged.

"Do you do stuff like that for a living?" Rick asked, sipping his tea.

Remus swallowed. "Nah," she said, looking into her bowl with an expression that decidedly did not invite further questions, letting her hair fall forward and obscure even more of her face than it usually did.

Pol exchanged a very unsubtle glance with her friends and stood up. "Well, we'll leave you to your dinner," she said brightly. "We're in room nine if you fancy stopping in. See you!"

They filed out. Remus and Sirius waited until they head the door close down the corridor before they both slumped in relief.

"I swear to god we used to be better at socialising than that," Remus said, the barest hint of a laugh in her voice.

" _I_ was, at the very least," Sirius shot back. "Weren't we like, the most popular kids in school at one point?"

"Fucking war, mate," Remus sighed. "Gets right up your arse and cores you out like a fucking apple."

"Great, thanks for that image."

"Fucknapple," Harry chirped.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your lovely comments and kudos, you are all very nice 
> 
> Sorry updates are so slow, but in my defense most of what I had to work with re: my notes for this chapter consisted of "Sirius and Remus generally trying to act like they're not grimy war-weary rebels who've forgotten how to interact with humanity".


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but wanted to get something down while I try and figure out where the hell all these different characters are in the country. They keep moving around. I regret so many things.

Andromeda slammed a tray down on the coffee table, causing a significant amount of tea to flop out of the teapot spout and splash into the sugar bowl.

“Ah – Mrs Tonks, we’d like to apologise once more for last night’s… confrontation,” Harriet Vance started, accepting the cup and saucer being shoved into her hands. “Henry Bones is not the most diplomatic member of our organisation. It was certainly not in his orders to try and melt the locks off your front gate.”

“Bit bloody late for that, Harriet,” Andromeda said, aggressively pouring milk into Eleanor Johnson’s tea. “We didn’t have a chance to fix it before the neighbours saw, Ted had to tell them some yobs took to it with a blowtorch when he was getting the paper this morning, now the entire neighbourhood watch is up in arms about it. They’re making _leaflets_. It’s unbearable.”

Harriet and Eleanor exchanged a bewildered glance.

“I – we are. Very sorry?” Eleanor tried, surreptitiously dabbing some spilled tea off her knee with her sleeve. “Henry seems to think that if someone is warding against alohamora, it’s simply an invitation to find a more creative way of breaking in. He’s a bit of a tosser, to be honest.”

“Yes, well,” Andromeda sniffed, throwing herself into an armchair across from where they were perched on the sofa. “You’re here to ask about my cousin as well, I assume?”

“We are,” Harriet confirmed. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could elaborate on what you yelled – ah, told Henry last night?”

Andromeda took a gulp of tea as if to fortify herself. “The last time I saw Sirius Black,” she said tiredly. “She was seventeen years old, piss-drunk, giving James Potter a piggyback and legging it away from Ted’s Aunt Bess, who was screaming hysterically about the tiny mole creature hanging off her earring. She wrote to me maybe a week later, telling me that Lily Evans had threatened to shave her eyebrows off while she slept if she didn’t apologise.”

“And that the last time you had any contact?” Eleanor asked.

“It was the last instance of any regular correspondence. We exchanged a few more letters over the years, more sporadically than before. She sent us a live salamander one year for Dora’s birthday, _that_ was a fun party to clean up after. I think she mentioned maybe dropping by to see us once or twice, once she’d left Hogwarts, but we never got around to making any concrete plans. Then she disappeared. I assume she was working for you lot.”

“She was. Her and her friends all joined up as soon as they left school.”

“Stupid little shits,” Andromeda sighed. “And now I hear everyone thinks Sirius has betrayed James and Lily?”

“It certainly seems that way. She was the only person who knew the whereabouts of the Potters’ hiding place, where they were murdered on Saturday evening. The fact that she is still alive and functioning indicates that the information was given over willingly.”

Andromeda didn’t look convinced. “How do you know she’s alive?”

“Because shortly after the murder took place she appeared at the scene, where she assaulted one of our agents and kidnapped Harry Potter.”

Andromeda paused at that. “The baby actually survived? I thought Mariella was having me on.”

“He survived,” Harriet confirmed. “No one has any idea how, but it’s true. It is also true that He Who Must Not Be Named did not survive.”

“Merlin.” Andromeda stared into her tea. _“Merlin.”_

The sitting room was silent for a long moment.

“So, what, you think that Sirius is a Death Eater, then? That she took the boy as revenge for somehow defeating the Dark Lord?”

“All the evidence certainly points that way,” Eleanor said, almost apologetically.

Andromeda nodded slowly. Then she shook her head. “No. No. There must be something your lot aren’t seeing. There has to be… what have her other friends said? Lupin, and the Pettigrew boy?”

“I’m afraid most of the information is classifi-”

“Bollocks. You cannot come into my home, accuse my cousin of being a traitor and then refuse me information. That’s not… no. Tell me. What have they said?”

Eleanor and Harriet exchanged another look. Eleanor shrugged. Harriet nodded.

“We have been… unable to reach Mr Pettigrew,” Eleanor said carefully. “He hasn’t been seen for over a week now. We have people out looking for him, but it’s possible he’s dead.”

“And Lupin?”

“Remus Lupin was briefed on the situation shortly after the incident, and promptly fell out of contact. We thought at first she’d gone to finish off Black herself, but all attempts to reach her have failed. When her flat was searched, there were lingering traces of a Patronus thought to be from Black, and it seemed as though she’d packed and left in a hurry. It’s looking increasingly likely that they’re working together.”

Andromeda frowned. “Then… hang on. Does that mean that Lupin is a suspected Death Eater as well?”

“It isn’t outside the realm of possibility,” Harriet said. “She spent the majority of the past few years undercover. She is known to have contacts – friends, even – throughout the wizarding world’s underbelly. It wouldn’t be the first time an assignment like that has resulted in an agent changing their loyalties.”

Andromeda dumped her teacup onto the coffee table with a clatter and rubbed her eyes. “What the four-fold _fuck_. None of this is… I mean. It’s not surprising that there have been instances of people changing sides. But that group? Those kids were _family_ to each other. Did you know, when Sirius left her parents’ house she went straight to the Potters? I was going to offer her my spare room, but by the time I found out what had happened, she’d already been living with James and his parents for over a month. The idea that she’d betray him and Lily…”

Harriet nodded sadly. “It’s an awful thing to contemplate. But this war… it’s changed things. Turned the world on its head. No one has made it through unaffected.”

“That’s an understatement if I ever heard one,” Andromeda muttered.

* * *

 Harry would not stop crying.

Sirius had been hoping that a proper meal and an actual bed would help settle him, but it was obvious that he didn’t understand why he wasn’t at _home_ , why his parents still weren’t there.

Remus put muffling charms and protective spells over their room’s door and windows while Sirius walked up and down between the empty beds with Harry, shushing him gently and humming lullabies. Harry cried, and cried, and cried.

“Fuck this, I’ll take him,” Remus said after nearly an hour. “You should try and sleep.”

“You’ve been awake at least as long as I have,” Sirius argued, in spite of the exhaustion dragging on her limbs.

“Maybe. But I’m not the one who spent last night duelling a half-giant and then tearing halfway across the country in a traumatised state. Go to sleep, Sirius.”

She held out her arms. Sirius hesitated, but then handed Harry over, feeling her eyelids drooping shut where she stood.

“We sleep in shifts,” she insisted, even as she plopped down on the nearest bunk and started prising off her boots. “Wake me in four hours, okay? And if, if-” She broke off to yawn. “If he gets sleepy, make sure he has his blanket when you put him down.”

“Got it,” Remus nodded, holding Harry close.

She resumed walking him around the room. Sirius sank down onto the ratty pillow provided with the room and closed her eyes, letting herself drift off to the sound of Harry’s fading whimpers, of Remus whispering to him under her breath – something about a walrus, and cabbages and kings.

* * *

 Sirius only woke once during the night. The room was quiet at last. The only light was the faint orange glow of the streetlights outside the window, casting strange shadows on the walls. Somewhere outside there were a few drunks yelling to each other and a couple of alley-cats fighting, their shrieks echoing off the endless rows of concrete and brick.

She could just make out two lumps on the bed across the narrow room from her – Harry, curled up between two pillows, presumably to stop him rolling off the edge of the mattress, and Remus, sitting up at the end of his bed, legs crossed and wand in hand.

Sirius managed a sleepy kind of questioning noise, lifting her head.

“Go back to sleep,” Remus whispered. “It’s alright.”

Sirius wanted to argue, but she was already being pulled back under.

* * *

 When she woke again, it was to daylight and the sound of the wide-awake world outside – buses and cars rumbling past, bin lorries beeping as they reversed up side-streets, Manchester stretching and cracking its neck, getting ready for the day ahead.

Remus was still sitting up at the end of Harry’s bed, staring at the wall, fiddling absently with her wand.

Sirius, vaguely annoyed, wiped drool off her cheek and sat up, glaring. “You didn’t wake me.”

Remus shrugged without looking at her. “You needed it more than me. And I – I wouldn’t have been able to. Sleep, I mean. I needed.”

Sirius waited, but no further explanation seemed forthcoming. “You’re a fucking idiot,” she informed her. “What are we supposed to do later today when you pass out in the middle of the street?”

“Werewolf,” Remus reminded her calmly. “I can keep going way longer than you can.”

Sirius huffed and reached for her boots. “Whatever. What time is it?”

“Just gone half seven. We should get going soon. I was gonna wake you up in a minute – I heard them down the corridor go in the kitchen for breakfast a while ago.”

“Let’s wait ‘til they’re gone to leave the room,” Sirius said, tugging on her laces. “Last night was bad enough, if we’re somehow being tracked then we can’t afford to make an impression on anyone.”

“Good shout. So once they’re gone we eat and then we’re off again, yeah?”

“Yeah. Where do you think we should go?”

“I reckon we carry on north, up towards the Lakes. There’ll be enough tourist spots that we might not have to stop in Lancaster to find somewhere to stay.”

Sirius nodded. “Alright. Am I right in assuming these places we’re going aren’t any more tolerant than Urmston was?”

“Right, shit,” Remus mumbled, looking down at herself. “We really need to change. Not least because both of us fucking stink.”

“It’s not that bad,” Sirius protested, lifting her arm to sniff. “It’s – oh. No, never mind. This place has showers, right?”

“Yep. Bagsy going first.” 

Sirius moved over to the door and cocked her head, silently willing Pol, Rick and Sally to stop bantering at each other and leave. “So in your head, does the bagsy thing actually work? Like, if you used that on a muggle, would they just… go along with it?”

Remus gave her an incredulous look from where she was rooting through the backpack for a clean shirt. “Mate. Law of bagsy is binding and sacred. That’s one of the first things you learn in primary school, right after the rules for British Bulldog. God, this explains so much about purebloods, no wonder so many of you end up slytherins if you can’t even trust in bagsy.”

“Would have made all those Christmas get-togethers a lot less explosive if we had. Bagsy not being the one to wake Harry up, by the way.”

Remus stared at her. “Fuck. I’ve created a monster, haven’t I?”

“Best just give into it,” Sirius agreed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playing a bit fast and loose with the timelines but in case anyone actually cares, it looks like in this universe Andromeda and Ted got married in about 1976, a few years after Tonks was born - otherwise we're dealing with Sirius being fourteen or under when she got drunk at her cousin's wedding which, fine we've all done that, but like. Still a bit dodgy. Whatever. My bad. 
> 
> Also it appears I have an issue throughout various fics in which a lot of characters spend their scenes like, angrily making tea. as an unapologetic anti-patriot, the level of britishness this is showing to be intrinsic to my thought process is disturbing to say the least. but honestly I couldn't resist having Andromeda's residual upper-class behaviours bleeding through when she gets frustrated. I like to think she and Sirius are constantly repressing the urge to say shit like 'blast' and 'bugger' when they get upset enough.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slow updates, took me a while to figure out how I wanted this to go down
> 
> Also half the characters in this fic have turned out to be OCs which I didn't see coming, but whatever lets go w the flow

"Are you _sure_ this is how muggles dress?" Catriona asked again, fussing with the rips in her tights and trying to tug her skirt down to a more respectable length. "I've seen magazines, the women in them didn't look anything like this."

"I know, you showed me," Ursula said tiredly, squinting as she tried to apply her eyeliner in the warped, stained mirror of the public bathroom. "That was a copy of Good Housekeeping. Not really the look we're going for."

"And we're going for this look why, exactly?"

"Nothing else has been working so far. We need to change up our tactics."

Catriona shifted uncomfortably. "I feel stupid. And I won't be able to run in these shoes."

"Tough. If we want to find Black and Lupin, we have to be able to blend in with the types of people they associate with."

"And in your head that means dressing like these... what did you call them, Bunks?"

"Punks. I understand it's the name of the music they all listen to. Or some sort of political movement. Definitions vary."

Catriona gave her a look. "That seems like the kind of thing we should know about if we're going to be mixing with these people."

"Unimportant. If someone tries to talk to you, just say something positive about an ark." Ursula paused. "No, hang on. That's Christians. Anarchy, that's the word. Or complain about whatshername, the muggle prime minister. Thatcher. That'll get them ranting and you can just slip away while they're distracted."

"How do you know so much about this?"

"Kingsley reads a lot, and he's interested in going into Muggle Liaisons after the war, if the Auror thing doesn't work out. It's all he talks about at family dinners."

The bathroom door clanged open and they both stopped talking hurriedly as a woman in a heavy coat and skirt came in, pulling two little girls by the hand. She took one look at Ursula and Catriona where they were leaning against the sinks and immediately tugged her children back through the door, snapping at them about finding a toilet with no rabble-rousers when they complained.

Ursula nodded, satisfied. "Good. That means we look the part."

Catriona stared after the woman, bewildered. "Muggles divide themselves on _everything._ How is it we're the ones at war and not them?"

"Believe me, they're at war," Ursula said, putting her makeup away and shaking out her hair. "It's just that it's so big you can't really see it happening. Now come on, we need to get to Manchester."

"Are you sure that's where we should go? Sheffield's been useless, and Henry didn't turn up anything in Leeds or York."

Ursula dug around in her pocket for the pen they'd been given, taken from Remus Lupin's flat and enchanted to track the whereabouts of the owner. She let it lie flat in her hand and did a quick 'point me' spell.

"This is still saying to head north-west," she said after a minute. "And Henry wants to get started on Scotland. If there's nothing in Manchester or Lancaster we can meet him and Valerie in Glasgow to re-evaluate."

"Better than nothing, I suppose," Catriona sighed, frowning at her reflection one last time and zipping up her jacket. "If they stay put for a while we might have a chance at narrowing down on them."

"You okay to apparate?"

"Should be as long as there's still some ginger root left."

"Merlin as my witness, you will get over this nausea problem if it's the last thing I do."

"Bugger off, I never asked for this."

* * *

"Merlin's pants this is ridiculous," Sirius groaned, slumping back in her seat. "Is this ever going to end? I'm in _agony."_

"What's ridiculous is that you've never experienced train delays before. How is this a new thing for you?" Remus asked distractedly, plying Harry with a box of raisins to keep him from trying to wriggle out from where he was wedged between them on the train station bench.

"Okay, you _know_ the only train I've ever been on was the Hogwarts Express. This is not new information. The only times I ever went anywhere far away outside school, it was back when my family was powerful enough that they could ignore the carpet ban."

"Still, you never even considered this as a possibility?"

"Get off your high horse and go talk to the man with the clipboard. I've got Harry."

"Ugh. Don't let anyone take my seat."

Remus hauled herself up off the bench and glared away a middle-aged man who had been hovering hopefully nearby, apparently under the impression that he wasn't perfectly visible in the crush of people waiting for the train tracks to be cleared of leaves. His face fell and he shuffled off, presumably in search of another bench to lurk next to.

She shouldered her away through the throng, glancing back at Sirius and Harry several times, towards the harried-looking man who had been burdened with the unlucky task of answering the questions of what seemed like several hundred angry commuters.

"Look, I'm sorry but I can't give you an exact timetable at the moment!" he was shouting over the general din of a large amount of irritated people packed into a relatively small space. "What I can tell you is that the tracks are being cleared as we speak and we'll soon have you on your way."

"Any chance you can give us a guess about which trains will be going soonest?" Remus asked, shoving to the front. "Like, which ones were about to leave when they got shut down?"

The man sniffed at her and checked his clipboard. "The express to London Euston and a few regional services out of the city were ready to leave when we had to cancel them. It's likely that they'll leave first. It'll be in the announcements."

"Where are the regional ones going?"

"There's one towards Liverpool and one to Preston where you might be able to connect for services to Leeds and Lancaster, but again, I can't say for sure-"

"Cool thanks."

Remus left him mid-sentence and pushed back through the crowd, her eyes immediately finding Sirius where she was still sitting with Harry in her lap, deliberately sprawling so she took up two seats at once and attracting a lot of glares. She moved over when she saw Remus coming, letting her plonk back into her seat.

"So it looks like we're heading for Preston and from there to Lancaster, unless you fancy going back to Liverpool or London."

"I mean, they won't expect us to be in the same place twice," Sirius mused. "But the Aurors will still be all over London, and if the Order's on our tail they might have only just reached Liverpool. We should carry on north."

"That's what I thought. Keep your ear out for what platform the Preston train's leaving from, then." She turned her attention to Harry, who was a little pink in the face and clutching his red plastic beaker. "And how are you doing, kiddo?"

"He fussed a bit while you were over there, but I gave him his drink and he calmed down again. I think this teeth are bothering him."

"We should get a teething ring or something next time we see a chemist. Don't let me forget."

"Can we get some less stupid clothes at some point as well? They don't have to be all lesbian-y, but we can definitely do better than this shitshow."

"Sirius, you're in jeans and a jumper. You couldn't look more normal if you tried."

_"Exactly."_

* * *

 "We've had no one fitting those descriptions stay here, I'm sorry," the woman at the desk was saying apologetically. "You're sure you can't remember the name of the place your friends are staying?"

"Well we wrote it down, but _someone_ went and lost the piece of parch - ahem - the piece of paper," Ursula said, glaring at Catriona, who was rolling her eyes theatrically. "Meant to be meeting up with them for a nice day out, and instead we've spent the whole morning trawling around every bloody guesthouse in the city!"

"I've said I'm sorry a thousand times, what else do you want from me?"

"You could start by not leaving your brain on the pillow when you get up every morning-"

"Well then maybe _you_ could try moving your bed away from the wall since you're clearly getting out on the wrong side-"

"Oh, for-"

"Look," the receptionist said hurriedly. "If you go down the tourist office they'll have a list of hostels in the area, you could have a butchers and see if any of them ring a bell. It's just round the corner from Piccadilly Station."

Ursula immediately dropped her angry expression to smile prettily at the woman. "That's very helpful," she said. "Thank you."

"Anarchy in the UK," Catriona added as they left.

"O...kay?" the woman said a beat too late, staring blankly after them.

* * *

 "Okay, let's play a game to pass the time," Sirius decided. "How many of these people do you think aren't wearing any pants under their clothes?"

"Are you being serious right now?"

Sirius grinned, her eyes glinting delightedly. "I think you'll find that I'm-"

"Oh shit-"

"- _always_ Sirius, thank you for asking."

Remus buried her face in her hands, partly to hide her amusement and partly in genuine despair. "I walked right into it. Heard it as soon as I said it. Christ, that was brutal."

"It's good that you can admit when you've been owned," Sirius told her. "It's a talent many do not have."

"Mostly I'm just too tired to argue with you, to be honest."

"I bloody _told_ you to get some sleep last night. Will you get some rest on the train?"

Remus shrugged. "We'll see." She sat up and stretched. "Should we walk Harry around a bit? I don't reckon he'll last much longer like this."

"I think he's alright for now."

Harry, who up to this point had been babbling quietly to himself and playing with his plastic elephant, immediately threw the toy on the floor and started to cry.

"Yeah, probably had to happen that way," Sirius sighed, scooping up both Harry and the elephant. "You've got the bag?"

"Yeah. Let's take him outside, I think the sun's come out a bit."

* * *

"Well that's useless," Catriona commented as the two of them stared at the very definite 'CLOSED' sign hanging on the door to the tourist office.

Ursula sighed and looked around, lunging out to tap on the shoulder of a passer-by. "Excuse me, you wouldn't happen to know when the tourist office opens, would you?"

The woman shrugged. "Wouldn't know love, sorry. Never seems to be open, that place. You might find something in the train station down the way there."

She carried on up the street, leaving Ursula and Catriona to glare at her retreating back.

"Well sod it," Catriona said after a few moments, throwing up her hands. "Let's go and check the bloody train station."

"You never know," Ursula said in a hopeless sort of voice. "We might just run straight into them on their way out of the city."

"Ha. You should make jokes more often."

* * *

Remus tilted her head back and closed her eyes against the morning sun, hanging low and bright in the autumn sky. The breeze was chilly and the air was thick with exhaust fumes, but Harry had calmed down for being outside and away from the crush of people in the station. Sirius was holding him by the hands and walking him up and down a relatively empty stretch of pavement, letting him chatter away happily.

"We should take him to a park at some point," Sirius said. "Let him run around, have some fun. I think we can risk it."

"Maybe, yeah," Remus agreed. "Once we know for sure they're not tracking..."

She trailed off as a face in the crowd caught her eye.

"Remus?"

Remus didn't reply, squinting against the sunlight as she tried to figure out what she was seeing. "What in god's name are they wearing..." she muttered.

_"Remus."_

"Sirius, pick up Harry and take him back inside as unobtrusively as you can," Remus said in a low voice. "Get to a quiet corner, out of sight. Go now."

Sirius was frozen where she stood. "It's them? You're sure?"

"Ursula Shacklebolt and one of the Murray sisters, dressed like Punks for some reason. Sirius, _move."_

_"Fuck."_

Sirius bent down and lifted Harry into her arms, shielding him with her body as she walked swiftly into the station. Remus waited for a beat and followed, just catching up with Sirius as she turned a corner and disappeared down the side of the left luggage office.

"Okay, okay," Sirius breathed when they found a dark corner to stop in, wands already out. "Disillusionment charms."

“Yeah. But Harry won’t like that - can you still do that moving muffliato you and Prongs were working on?”

“I think so. Do you know a way out of here?”

“I say we try for a train. Better than having to play cat-and-mouse all over the city,” Remus said, cocking her head and listening hard.

Like an answered prayer, a nasal voice came rattling through the tannoy system.

_“The train on platform 3 to Preston is now boarding. The train on platform 3 is now boarding, thank you.”_

“Can we make it?”

“Only if we get a fucking move on. Here, give us your head.”

Sirius leaned over and let Remus tap her wand on the top of her scalp, feeling the cold trickle of the disillusionment charm wash its way down the back of her neck. To her surprise, it covered Harry as well, causing him to jerk in surprise and start to fuss.

“I’ll do my own, you handle the muffliato before they hear him,” Remus said, trying to get the wand position right on top of her own head and tapping hard.

Sirius muttered the words she and Prongs had modified together and listened as the din of the train station softened to a muffled drone around them.

She nodded, satisfied, as Remus filtered out of sight, leaving the barest impression of herself visible against the dingy walls.

“Okay. Let’s run,” she said, clutching Harry closer to her chest.

“Stick to the sides, don’t try and run through any groups,” Remus warned, making sure her backpack was on properly.

They took off.

 

 

 “It was them, I’m telling you!” Catriona said, looking frantically around the station. “Fuck, where did they go?”

“You’re absolutely _sure?”_

“NO! That’s exactly why I’m yelling it was THEM I’M TELLING YOU!”

“Okay you need to bring it WAY down-”

_“There!”_

Catriona pointed frantically as a couple of the people out of the stream heading towards platform 3 staggered suddenly, as if they’d been knocked into by someone no one could see.

 

 

“Sorry!” Remus shouted over her shoulder as the commuters she’d crashed into went flying like bowling pins.

“They can’t hear you, doxybrain!”

“Whatever! Quick, catch the doors!”

 

 

 “Fuck – _run then!”_

 _“I’d be able to if it wasn’t for these stupid shoes!”_ Catriona half-screeched as they hobbled between a couple of startled-looking businessmen.

“They were a good idea at the time and you kn- oh _bollocks_ , I think they’re already on the train!”

Catriona followed Ursula’s pointed finger and saw the same thing she was seeing – a set of doors that couldn’t quite close all the way, as if an invisible bag had gotten stuck between them.

 

 

“I’m gonna fucking murder something,” Remus grunted, tugging frantically on the backpack. “Sirius, stop laughing and fucking _help me here!”_

 

 

 Ursula and Catriona skidded to a messy halt at the edge of the platform just as the train started to move, ignoring the looks they were getting in favour of swearing loudly at the retreating vehicle.

“Calm down, there’s another one in like fifteen minutes,” said a bystander, staring at them oddly.

Ursula ignored this as well and tugged Catriona towards one of the timetables being displayed along the platform. “Come on, we have to figure out where that train’s going.”

* * *

_"Welcome aboard this northern railway service to Preston, calling at Swinton, Farnworth, Middlebrook, Rivington, Chorley…”_

“Okay, decision time,” Remus whispered as they huddled down in the corner of the carriage outside the toilet, making themselves as invisible as possible. “Should we stick with the plan and go all the way to Preston, or assume they saw us get on this train, pick a random stop and head off in a different direction?”

“I say the second option,” Sirius replied, stroking Harry’s hair and cuddling him close, thankful he’d seemed to mostly enjoy all the running. “Find somewhere isolated where we can change our appearances properly, see if we can figure out how they’re tracking us and block it.”

“Bearing in mind that they can apparate, and we’re still relying on public transport. We might need to make another quick getaway.”

Sirius thought for a moment. “What if we got hold of a couple of brooms?”

“Sirius, we’re travelling with a _baby._ He won’t be able to handle that kind of change in air-pressure.”

“Yeah, I’m aware,” Sirius replied, her mind already whirring with possible solutions. “But I bet we could use that modified shield spell – you know, from when we tried to make our own fireworks and needed protection from all the explosions? If we combined it with a bubblehead charm and got it to kind of isolate around Harry – that way he’d definitely be able to breathe properly and it’d keep him warm. Then all we’d need is some kind of safety harness.”

Remus considered this. “It’s risky. But it might be worth it if it helps us avoid another incident like the clusterfuck back there.”

Sirius nodded, smiling. “I’ll start figuring out the theory, you steal the map sticking out of that guy’s bag and see if you can work out where we might be able to find some brooms.”

Remus gave her a thumbs-up. A few shifty glances around and a whispered ‘accio’ spell later they were deep into planning, trading ideas back and forth, filling Sirius with a warm kind of nostalgia.

“I think I remember my dad mentioning a few small wizarding communities around here,” Remus said, motioning to a cluster of villages in the Yorkshire Dales. “If we get off at the next stop and start heading north-east, it might throw them off just long enough to give us a new head start.”

“You’re sure?”

“Well no, but it’s the best we’ve got right now. We could see if we can get hold of a tent as well, that might make things easier.”

“Moony come on, I thought you knew me better than th... oh."

Sirius trailed off as she realised the name she’d let slip, the one she’d been actively suppressing the urge to use.

Remus’ face had closed over, her eyes shuttered and her jaw set. Sirius didn’t need to know what her own expression looked like to know the emotions she was projecting.

“Remus, I…”

“Don’t, Sirius,” Remus said, turning away. “Just. Please. Not now.”

Sirius watched her for another moment, and nodded. She turned back to her notes, gently tugging the pencil she’d been using out of Harry’s grasp before he tried to eat it.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “Okay.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning - the third section of this chapter involves pretty explicit references to torture and gore, mostly threats. Nothing particularly graphic is actually shown? But like it's definitely a thing that is there, so if anyone needs to skip it let me know and I'll fill you in on the important bits or put them in the end notes or something. 
> 
> In other news, I'm gonna go ahead and give up on trying to predict how long this thing will be. It'll be finished when it's finished. Yay for spontaneity.

It was raining hard in Glasgow. Water came blowing in every time someone opened the café door, soaking anyone who had made the mistake of sitting near it. The back of Catriona’s neck was wet. She was half-tempted to snatch the laminated menu Valerie Abbott was immersed in across the table and use it as an umbrella, but she couldn’t imagine doing so would go over particularly well, diplomatically-speaking. Especially given the way Henry Bones was glaring.

“Do you mean to tell us,” he was saying slowly and carefully. “That you had them in your sights. That against all odds, you just happened across them in the middle of one of the country’s biggest, busiest cities. That you were literally twenty feet away from them. _And you still. Let them. Get. Away_.”

“There is absolutely no need for that tone,” Ursula huffed, while Catriona gulped down some terrible coffee and avoided eye contact. “They are very fast. And very, very good at disillusionment charms. Besides, I’d like to see _you_ try and sprint through a very busy train station in boots with heels the size of your own neck.”

 _“Well then maybe next time don’t try and get all clever with the disguises,”_ Henry whisper-screamed.

Ursula raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? And how much progress have _you_ been making, sweater vest?”

“That’s neither here nor there,” Henry said, crossing his arms self-consciously over his questionable choice of attire. “I refuse to believe there’s any significant correlation between clothes and the ability to track down fugitives.”

“All the evidence suggests otherwise,” Ursula retorted. “Seeing as we’re the only ones who have come even slightly close to cornering them so far.”

Catriona nodded in agreement. “Dumbledore said it himself, if we want to get near them we have to think like them – all their leather clothes and angry music and living in buildings owned by other people-”

“I mean,” Valerie said suddenly, emerging from her menu. “You’ve got a point, you have. But what were they wearing when you caught up to them?”

Catriona frowned at that. “Why?”

“Just. Were they dressed in a way that would blend in with these… _pinks_ you’re emulating, or are they playing us at our own game and trying to blend in with different muggle subcultures than the ones we’re expecting them to?”

Ursula stared at her. “You may have a point there,” she admitted. “Just slightly.

Valerie hummed noncommittally and went back to her menu.

Henry drank some of his own coffee and grimaced at the taste. “So what now?”

“Well, they’re still in the north as far as we can tell,” Ursula said. “They definitely know we’re tracing them – they’d already gotten off the train by the time we caught up with it, and there was no sign of them in any of the stations when we went back and searched. They’re probably working on a way to block the tracking spells as we speak.”

Henry rubbed his hands over his face a few times. “Okay. We’ll just have to hope that travelling around aimlessly with a toddler somehow makes for slow spellwork. Unless they dump the child somewhere and vanish altogether,” he added darkly.

“They won’t,” Catriona said suddenly.

The rest of them looked at her. She glanced over at Ursula.

“You saw them outside the station as well,” she said. “You saw the boy. He was healthy. Laughing. They’re looking after him. I think they might actually _care_ about him, in spite of everything.”

Ursula looked thoughtful. “It’s possible. They didn’t even try to apparate with him. They’re only using modes of transport that are safe for the baby. In my experience, that’s not common practice for kidnappers, let alone Death Eaters.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Henry argued. “Travelling with a child is conspicuous enough without it being a child that’s been splinched in half – of course they’re not risking apparition. Just because they’re not complete morons doesn’t mean they’re not evil.”

Ursula pursed her lips doubtfully, but she nodded anyway. “That’s fair,” she said. “I suppose we’ll find out in time.”

Henry sighed and drained the last of his coffee with a shudder. “Ugh. So that’s all you have to report?”

“So far.”

“Fine. I’ll relay it to Dumbledore.”

“Thank you. Any news from him and McGonagall, while we’re here?”

“Yes, actually. There’s still no sign of Pettigrew, but they’ve managed to track down an ex-informant of his in Knocturn Alley. They’ve taken him into custody – he’s refusing to talk without proper incentive, but they’re almost sure he knows something. They’re working on getting hold of some veritaserum. In the meantime, if Pettigrew is alive he may still be trying to make contact with the fugitives, so keep an eye out.”

“We will,” Ursula said, standing. “We should get going. It was nice seeing you, Henry. And you, Valerie.”

The rest of them also stood. Valerie put her menu down at last while the others were exchanging handshakes, gave them an absent smile and wandered over to the counter, murmuring something about wanting egg on toast.

Ursula and Catriona left Henry with a long-suffering look on his face and ducked out the door back into the rain, pulling their jackets over their heads as they went.

* * *

 The Burrow was somehow even more chaotic than usual, and Molly was getting a little tired.

She had three injured Order members in her living room, being tended to by an increasingly irritated Madam Pomfrey and being inundated with an endless stream of questions from Percy. Hagrid, mostly recovered from his assault but not quite steady enough to travel, was taking up most of her kitchen, making endless pots of tea and getting pestered by Charlie for stories about dragons. Bill was on his fourth sulk of the day about wanting to be out of the house and off at Hogwarts already, and had been sent to his room to calm down (instead, he was playing Gideon’s old Unhappy Giants albums on repeat with the volume turned up as high as it would go).

Fred and George had also been sent upstairs in disgrace after they’d been found trying to bury Ron in the garden, explaining that they were trying to send him home to the other gnomes. Ron himself had fallen asleep in one of Hagrid’s shoes, having tired himself out when he succeeded in tipping Bill’s entire gobstone collection down the stairs. Only Ginny was behaving – Molly assumed that this was only down to the fact that she was still too small to sit up on her own.

Arthur wouldn’t be home from work for another hour, and there was still the dinner to be made and the laundry to be brought in. Molly sat down heavily at the kitchen table and rubbed her eyes tiredly. A few of her brood went thundering past and disappeared out the back door.

“Everythin’ alright, Molly?” Hagrid asked hesitantly, lurking next to the kettle with a mug in each hand. “Made yer a cuppa.”

“Thank you, Hagrid,” Molly sighed, accepting the proffered mug and slumping back in her chair to take a sip. “Any chance you know what my children are up to out there?”

“They said summat about feedin’ the chickens,” Hagrid said. “Not sure what they wanted to feed ‘em with, though – I think Fred might’ve had some Every-Flavour Beans. You want me to go an’ put a stop to it?”

She glanced at him, surprised. “I – yes, thank you,” she said. “I’m just going to start on dinner.” She paused. “I’d appreciate it if you could get that laundry down off the line as well. Ask Charlie to help, he’s tall enough. And tell Fred and George to count the pegs once you’re finished, that should keep them occupied for a while.”

“Right you are,” Hagrid nodded, looking pleased that he had something to do. He glanced out of the window and squinted at something. “Ah – should Percy have hold of a live rat out there?”

“Oh, that’s just Scabbers,” Molly dismissed, hauling herself up and summoning the chopping board from across the room. “They fed it the other day and now it keeps coming back. I think Percy’s trying to train it. It’s fine as long as he washes off with the hose before he comes back inside.”

Hagrid nodded and squeezed himself outside.

He only took a few chips off the doorframe this time. Molly decided to consider this progress.

* * *

 The Death Eater tied to Emmeline Vance’s table struggled uselessly, shouting muffled curses against the gag in his mouth.

Harriet glared at him. “Look,” she said. “You’re not achieving anything here. You’re just wasting your energy and annoying us. Kindly shut up.”

“Did you _have_ to bring him here?” Emmeline asked, bustling into the kitchen and dumping a rolled-up cloth onto the butcher’s block. Something inside it clinked ominously. “This hardly seems like the most practical option.”

“Sorry,” Harriet said, not sounding particularly apologetic. “It all happened very fast, we couldn’t think of what else to do. How’s that water coming, Eleanor?”

“Still cold,” Eleanor said from over by the stove, where she’d been instructed to put a large pot on to boil. “Are they the tools, Emmeline?”

“Most of them. I’m afraid some of them are rather rusty from being in storage, my attic has a spot of damp.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Harriet assured them. “I’m sure they’ll still be very helpful.”

The Death Eater had stopped trying to pull himself free and was starting to look panicked, his eyes darting around anxiously.

“Which one’s this, then?” Emmeline asked, folding her arms and leaning over to inspect him distastefully.

“Evgeni Rosier, according to the posters. Caught him trying to follow us out of Birmingham, thought he might be in a sharing mood.”

“Well you came to the right place for that, at least,” Emmeline said graciously. She unrolled the cloth in one swift motion and picked up one of the instruments inside it, holding it up so the light glinted off the numerous short, sharp-looking prongs.

“Bloody hell,” Eleanor said, staring.

Harriet shot her a smile. “Family heirlooms – our grandfather worked for the muggle secret service in his youth. He went a little – ah, _rogue_ , and forgot to return a few things when he was court-martialled.”

Emmeline slid the butcher’s block closer to the table. “We’ve found them to be particularly handy when it comes to negotiating with people who have almost certainly undergone counter-interrogation training against, say, the cruciatus curse, but are unlikely to have even considered that there might be other methods of… persuasion.”

Evgeni Rosier was starting to hyperventilate, staring sideways at the tool in Emmeline’s hand. He started babbling frantically through the gag.

“I’m sorry, we can’t quite understand you,” Harriet said, moving to stand over him. “Could you repeat yourself?”

Rosier shouted something else. His face was turning purple.

Emmeline and Harriet exchanged a look.

“Listen, Evgeni,” Harriet said. “I’m going to take off that gag so we can have a proper chat. But I’m going to have to ask you to keep yourself quiet when I do – I’d hate for Emmeline to have to get her tools dirty. Understand?”

Emmeline had picked up another implement. This one was long and thin, with an alarmingly sharp-looking point.

Rosier glanced between them with wide, terrified eyes, and nodded hastily.

Harriet removed the gag and immediately put it back when Rosier immediately started to shout for help.

“Now, Evgeni, what did we just agree on?”

Evgeni stilled as Emmeline touched the point of the instrument to the skin just below his ear. He went quiet, taking deep breaths in through his nose.

“Better,” Harriet smiled. “First off – would I be right in assuming that you’re the brother of Druella Black, née Rosier? Uncle to Bellatrix Lestrange?”

Rosier scowled, but made a noise that worked as an affirmative.

“And would I be right in assuming that the Lestranges are where your current loyalties lie?”

Another grunt.

“Capital. Now – why were you following us, exactly?”

Rosier hesitated.

Emmeline put just a little pressure on the spike.

“Okay!” Rosier yelped. “Intel from London – they’re saying you lot are tailing Sirius Black, we, we thought following you would be our best chance at finding her!”

The Vances paused, and exchanged a glance with Eleanor, who walked forward.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked, frowning. “Has she not already been in contact with you?”

“What? No, of course not,” Rosier said, his face creasing with confusion.

The three women shared another look. Emmeline shrugged. Eleanor and Harriet nodded.

Emmeline twisted the spike, letting it break the skin slightly, causing Rosier to shout in alarm and try to jerk his head away.

“ _Merlin_ would you stop that? I’ll answer your questions I swear, just-”

“What to the Death Eaters want with Black?” Harriet demanded.

“To kill her, obviously! Kill her and take the child, the Potter scum who murdered our Dark Lord! We know she has him!”

They all froze at that.

“Why would you need to kill her to get your hands on the boy?” Eleanor asked suspiciously. “She’s already working for you.”

“If she was it’d be news to me,” Rosier wheezed, eyes straining sideways as if to make sure Emmeline wasn’t planning anything else with the spike. “All I know is she’s protecting the child from us, keeping him hidden. None of the tracking spells we’ve cast will hold, every time I try to follow a trace I end up apparating in the opposite direction!”

Emmeline narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you sure you’re telling the truth?” she pressed, running her free hand over the instruments lined up on the butcher’s block, making the clink meaningfully. “I’d so hate to make a mess of my kitchen floor, I only cleaned it yesterday-”

 _“I promise I’m not lying!”_ Rosier half-screamed, leaning his head as far away from her as he could reach. “Please, I swear!”

Over on the stove, the pot of water started to boil, the lid clattering noisily. Emmeline looked up.

“Oh, good,” she said, pleased. “That should come in useful. Harriet, be a dear and hand me that cleaver from the draining board?”

Rosier’s gaze whipped over to the stove, and then to the meat cleaver Harriet was picking up. “Listen,” he said desperately. “I don’t know what you think you know about Black – she might be working with us, I don’t know! We don’t get told everything! All I know is my orders are to find her, kill her and take the boy to the Lestrange mansion, _please don’t use that!”_

Emmeline moved to the end of the table and briefly ducked out of his line of sight. Rosier fought against his restraints, trying to see what she was doing, and jumped horribly when he felt her hand on his lower leg.

“Oh Merlin, please don’t chop off my leg, please! I swear, I’m telling the-”

Emmeline raised the cleaver.

Rosier passed out. His head hit the table with a thud.

Emmeline nodded, satisfied. “In my experience, if they’re scared enough to faint, they’ve usually left the ability to lie convincingly far behind,” she informed the other two.

Eleanor looked a little unnerved. “You weren’t really going to chop off his leg, were you?”

Emmeline smiled slightly and held up what she’d grabbed from underneath the table – a joint of beef, still on the bone. “If he hadn’t fainted, I would have brought the cleaver down on this. The sound of it would have scared the last of the resistance out of him before he realised he hadn’t actually felt anything.”

“That is… well thought out,” Eleanor said.

“They don’t always fold as easily as this one,” Harriet shrugged. “Sometimes they need a little extra nudge.”

“And the water?”

“Adds a little time pressure,” Emmeline explained. “Plus, I quite fancy some boiled potatoes with my dinner.”

Eleanor started to smile. “Have you ever had to actually torture someone?”

“Not once,” Emmeline said proudly. She held up the spike. “I’ll tell you, it’s a good thing Death Eaters reject so many aspects of muggle culture. I don’t think this would work nearly so well if any of them realised that this was just a meat thermometer.”

“Also a good thing that so many muggle kitchen implements look like torture devices in the right lighting,” Harriet added. “I’m going to go contact the aurors. They can take care of the Rosier.”

“Make sure it’s Moody who comes for him,” Eleanor told her. “He’s got a direct line to Dumbledore and the rest of them – I’m sure they’ll all be very interested in what our friend Evgeni has to say.”

* * *

  _"Damn it,”_ Sirius said again as the spell fizzled uselessly at the end of her wand.

Harry giggled delightedly at the faint silver sparks, trying to reach out and grab them. Remus gently guided him back to where she was holding him with a quiet “stay still, kiddo.”

Sirius raked her hair away from her face, looking tired. “I don’t understand why it’s still not working.”

“Maybe you’re trying to do too much with one incantation,” Remus suggested. “What if you broke it down into steps?”

Sirius eyed her notes contemplatively. “Yeah, maybe. Build the shield first, regulate the pressure, direct it to cover him-”

“Then add the thermal layer once it’s in place,” Remus finished.

The room was quiet for a long moment while Sirius made a few adjustments in her notebook, occasionally testing something out loud. After a while, she nodded. “Yeah, that should work. Okay, so if-”

She was cut off by a knock at the door and a jovial call of “Housekeeping!”

Sirius quickly shoved her wand and book out of sight. “That’s the third time this morning,” she said under her breath, irritated.

The guesthouse they’d found was warm, cheap and secluded, but near a village with a train station, which made it ideal. However, it was run by a woman who seemed to have a tendency to get a little over-invested in her tenant’s daily routines, which was… less than ideal.

“Probably making sure we’re not up to any weird shit, hanging out in the room all day,” Remus muttered, getting up to answer the door. “Best just answer or she’ll never leave.”

Their host was already trying to peer into the room when Remus whisked the door open. She straightened up hurriedly with a cheery smile on her face, and held out a stack of towels with some kid’s books balanced on top.

“Thought you girls might like a few extra towels,” she said brightly. “And I had a hunt around, came up with a few books for the little lad – he must be getting fussy, cooped up in this room all day!”

As if on cue, Harry laughed loudly in the background at something Sirius was doing.

Remus smiled at the woman. “He’s been fine so far,” she said. “But thanks for the books anyway, that’s very nice of you.”

“Yes, well.” The woman handed over the pile, her grin starting to look a little fixed. “I do hope you find the time to have a look around the village, and there’s wonderful countryside around here-”

“We’ll definitely be having a look around, don’t you worry,” Remus assured her, layering on enough fake cheerfulness that Sirius had to turn an amused snort into a minor coughing fit. “We’re actually all heading out for a while later on.”

“Right! Jolly good!” the woman chirped. “Don’t forget to give Helen at reception your breakfast requests for the morning!”

“Thanks for the books and towels!” Remus called after her, before kicking the door shut and going back over to the bed where the other two were sat, letting the stack in her arms drop along with her fake smile.

“Think you might be going a little overboard with trying to compensate for your lack of social skills,” Sirius said, semi-jokingly.

Remus raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t respond to the attempt at banter. Instead, she gave Harry one of the books to look at, helping him open the front cover and smiling slightly when he started looking at the pictures with interest.

Sirius had gotten out her notebook again, but wasn’t writing anything. “Hey,” she said. “When you said we’re all going out later – you didn’t mean all three of us are going to get the brooms, did you?”

Remus shrugged, not looking up. “I don’t know,” she said. “Kind of figured we would be. We can just use disillusionments again, right?”

Sirius was frowning. “Right,” she said. “But – why bother? It’d be quicker if just one of us goes. Easier as well. The other one can stay here with Harry.”

“Seems safer if we all stay together,” Remus said.

“Yeah, if we’re out in the open. But we’re safe enough here - we’ve got the room warded, we’ve covered our tracks and we’re blocking the tracers. You know where you’re going better than I do, you could get the brooms and I could stay here to work on the spell so we’re ready to fly.”

Remus didn’t say anything, just turned a page in Harry’s book.

Sirius sighed, hard. “What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Remus said. “I just don’t think we should split up.”

There was a heavy silence while Sirius watched Remus determinedly avoid eye contact.

“You still don’t trust me,” she said at last. “After all this, you still don’t trust me enough to leave me alone with Harry. That’s why you haven’t been sleeping properly.”

“Neither of us have been sleeping properly,” Remus said. “We’ve hardly stopped in days.”

“You know what I mean,” Sirius said, her voice getting harder, angrier. “The hostel in Manchester. You wouldn’t even close your eyes on the train, not to mention – I woke up last night, I _heard_ you pacing, I thought you were just getting Harry to settle-”

Remus stood up abruptly, her face stony and closed over. “Get a grip, Sirius,” she said harshly. “Of _course_ I don’t trust you."

Sirius’ nostrils flared. She got up as well, leaving Harry to flip through the cardboard pages of his book, oblivious. “You don’t, do you?” she spat. “Still? Where’s all your fucking logic, Remus? What, you think I’d send you a message _begging_ you for help, rely on you for navigating all this muggle nonsense for days on end, then just take off in the middle of the night? In what reality does that make any sense?”

“Well where’s _your_ logic?” Remus snapped back. “Did you honestly think it’d only take a few days of buying nappies and running for trains for it to be just like old times? That I’d just suddenly forget about everything you’ve been accused of? Everything you accused _me_ of?”

“I gave you my side of the story, I _apologised-”_

“And what if I don’t _fucking believe you.”_

Harry let out a sharp whimper from the bed, causing them to stop abruptly, both of them red with anger and breathing hard. They turned to him – he was blinking up at them, confused and scared, clutching his book as if it were a teddy bear. He started to cry.

Remus backed up a few steps and tried to force herself to calm down. Sirius picked up Harry and held him close, rocked him gently, whispering reassurances.

They both stood in silence until Harry was calmer. Sirius briefly hid her face in the top of his head and let out a long breath. Then she strode across the room and pushed him into Remus’ arms.

“I need some air, and he needs a nappy change,” she grit out. “You handle it. I’ll be back later.”

She shoved on her shoes and made for the door.

Behind her, Remus shifted Harry so she was holding him with one arm, and used the other to draw her wand.

“How do I know you won’t just disapparate?” she challenged, shaking even as she pointed it levelly at Sirius’ back. “How do I know you’ll come back?”

Sirius stopped, but she didn’t turn around. “Because I wouldn’t do that to Harry,” she said, her voice trembling almost imperceptibly. “Check your calendar, Moony. You’d better work through those trust issues of yours sharpish, or we’re all fucked. Including him.”

With that, she slammed out of the room, leaving deafening silence in her wake.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter, but the next one should be a big 'un if you'll bear with me. 
> 
> Warning for brief mention of physical abuse by a parent

Sirius came storming back into the room not long after nightfall and threw two stolen brooms down on the floor.

Remus shushed her harshly, pointing at Harry, who was curled up asleep in one of the beds. Sirius didn’t react, but she did move more quietly as she took off her jacket and sat down on the other bed, the mattress squeaking and popping under her weight.

She had a cold, blank, haughty expression on her face that Remus had only seen a few times, but knew far too well all the same. It was the same look she’d had all those months ago when they’d seen each other last, just before she snapped.

It was the same one she’d had after she left Grimmauld Place for the last time, sitting tight as a wound spring in the Potter’s front room, clutching a cup of tea but not drinking it, cheek still stinging red from Walburga’s slap while James’ parents fussed over her.

It seemed almost instinctual, the way Sirius would develop a rock-solid exoskeleton when she was feeling vulnerable or threatened, relying on it to keep her upright, to hide every crack in her armour. She used what came easily to her, what she’d grown up with, what she’d been internalising since day one.

Remus could understand it, as defence mechanisms went – she did the same thing when she needed to, would let her accent get thicker and rougher, would contort her face just so to let her scars stand out, would growl and cuss the way she’d learned collecting glasses at her uncle’s pub as a kid. She knew exactly how to glare at someone in a way that said she was just _waiting_ for them to make a wrong move so she could drive a corkscrew through the back of their hand.

Sirius knew how to keep her face so painfully neutral that everyone in the vicinity would end up watching her warily, terrified for the moment she finally made an expression, because that was generally the moment shit would go sideways (often literally, knowing Sirius’ spellwork). She’d once made a Slytherin twice her size almost piss himself using only her eyebrows.

(Prongs had been in awe and begged her to teach him. He definitely couldn’t pull it off, seeing as James Potter in his worst moods was about as threatening as a hyperactive – if dickish – yorkshire terrier. But it had made Lily Evans laugh, which more than made up for it in his head).

Now that Remus was on the receiving end, she could see exactly why Sirius had been able to swagger through school all those years without once worrying what people thought of her, what they were whispering behind her back. If she didn’t know what Sirius looked like with a dungbomb going off in her face, or screeching about a clump of Drooble’s stuck in her hair, or laughing so hard she snorted firewhiskey up her nose and had to be taken to the hospital wing, she might have even been scared herself.

As things were, she wasn’t feeling particularly sociable either. She got out the map and her lunar calendar and sat down on the end of Harry’s bed, muttering her way through a few navigation spells until Sirius spoke up.

“Where next, then?”

Remus chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Wales. We can start off in Cardiff and work our way inland over the week.”

“And when the week’s up?” Sirius asked harshly, like she was forcing the question out of her lungs.

 Remus let out a sharp breath through her nose and circled an area on the map, holding it out so Sirius could see. “Cambrian Mountains. Huge place, low population, decent amount of forest. Basically perfect for a full moon. Might put some sheep in danger and run into another werewolf or two, but it’s the best I can do right now.”

Sirius studied the map with a clenched jaw. “What about Harry and I?”

“You… you two would stay behind. That bit of the mountains is pretty much inaccessible, no roads, no towns. They call it the Desert of Wales. I’d have to apparate in and out.”

Remus didn’t bother trying to mask her reluctance.

Sirius swallowed and leaned back again. “Okay. We finish Harry’s shield and set off first thing. Before sunrise.”

“Good fucking thing we didn’t put in an order for breakfast,” Remus muttered as Sirius lay down and turned on her side, resolutely facing the wall.

* * *

 “You might have mentioned earlier that you had access to veritaserum,” McGonagall said dryly, watching Albus tip the potion into the water jug he’d requested. “According to Alice Longbottom, the Ministry have locked down all their stores for use during the trials.”

“I wasn’t sure that I did. The acquaintance I procured this from is not the most reliable source,” Dumbledore said absently, stirring the mixture and returning it to the tray Madam Rosmerta had delivered earlier, mumbling about plausible deniability in her own bloody pub as she pointedly avoided looking at anything that was happening in her back room.

Pettigrew’s informant hummed to himself where he was sprawled on the floor, his head and shoulders propped up against the wall. They both glanced over at him and he gave them a slow, dazed smile.

McGonagall sniffed. “The confundus will wear off shortly. We should get started.”

Dumbledore nodded, and waved his wand. The informant was lifted off the ground and dragged over to the table they were standing next to, flopping into one of the waiting chairs like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His head lolled alarmingly – McGonagall sighed and went to stand behind him.

“I’ll prop him up, you help him drink.”

They did their best, but a fair amount of veritaserum-spiked water still ended up dribbling down the informant’s front. Regardless, his eyes lost the glazed quality that came with a confundus charm and took on the peaceful apathy of someone under the influence of a truth potion.

“Is your name Vincent Cornelius Addle?” McGonagall asked, to establish that the potion was working.

“Yeah,” Addle said, his voice much softer than his unkempt appearance would have suggested.

“Do you own a pub in Knockturn Alley known as the Newt Catchers Arms?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you associated with a man named Peter Pettigrew?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you been working for him as an informant for the past year?”

“Yeah.”

McGonagall nodded, satisfied. “He’s finally cooperating.”

Dumbledore dragged the other chair over to sit opposite Addle, looking him directly in the eye.

“What sort of information have you been providing Mr Pettigrew with?”

“Whatever he wanted to know. Who was stopping by the pub. What was getting said about people – the aurors, the Death Eaters, You Know Who. Sometimes he showed me pictures of people, asked if I’d seen them around Knockturn Alley, and if I had who they’d been talking to.”

“And these pictures, they were all of Death Eaters?”

Addle shrugged. “Some of ‘em. Others I didn’t know, reckon they were outsiders. Didn’t look like the sort to be hanging around my pub, unless they were spying like him.”

Dumbledore eyed him contemplatively. “The Death Eaters and their associates must comprise most of your customer base. You knew he was working against them?”

“Yeah.”

“And yet you still provided him with intel? Why?”

“He paid well. Never said where he got his money, but he always met my price, and then some.”

Dumbledore looked up at that, frowning, to meet McGonagall’s eye. She looked equally confused, but raised her eyebrows in a way that said they should set the matter aside until they could talk freely. He nodded and turned back to Addle.

“When was the last time you had any contact with Mr Pettigrew?”

“Couple of weeks ago.”

“What happened?”

“He came by the pub, had me meet him out by the bins like usual. Was even twitchier than normal, told me something was happening.”

“He didn’t say what?”

“No.”

“Did he ask you for information?” McGonagall asked.

“No. He gave me a sneakoscope and an envelope.”

Dumbledore frowned again. “Did he say what they were for?”

“Yeah. He said the sneakoscope was special, wouldn’t work like normal, which was good because it would’ve been whistling all the live-long day ‘round my pub. He said if it did start whistling, I should find his mum and give her the envelope. Then he paid me.”

McGonagall leaned forwards to peer at him. “Did you open the envelope?”

“Yeah. Thought it might’ve had more money in it, but there was just a letter.”

“Did you read the letter?”

“Only the first bit. It was for his mum, said if she was reading it then it meant Pete was dead. I stopped reading after that. No good in reading another man’s death letter, you’d prolly go blind.”

Dumbledore and McGonagall both straightened up to look at each other over Addle’s head.

“And has the sneakoscope been whistling?” McGonagall asked, without taking her eyes away from Dumbledore’s.

Addle reached into his pocket and came up with a small, bright, completely silent object. He waved it around unsteadily. “No. See for yourself.”

McGonagall took the sneakoscope to examine while Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, lowering his glasses to consider Addle further.

“Was that the entire transaction?”

“Yeah.”

“How did he seem when you parted ways? Was he relieved? Afraid?”

Addle shrugged. “Couldn’t tell,” he said, blinking slowly.

“Did he say where he was going next?”

“Nah. Didn’t say anything after he gave me the money.”

“You’re sure?” Dumbledore pressed. “Nothing about any associates? He didn’t mention anything about Sirius Black?”

Addle shook his head again. “Nothing. He just waited ‘til he thought I wasn’t looking, then he turned into a rat and ran off.”

The sudden, vacuous silence in the room was only broken by the loud thud of the sneakoscope hitting the floor.

“Suddenly, a lot of things make a lot more sense,” McGonagall said faintly.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> christ on a bike this took a while, v sorry. hope this 3k of people being useless helps make up for it. full moon was going to be this chapter but everything was getting very long and unnecessary so split it in half. next chapter shouldn't be too far behind (she said, digging herself a little deeper into her new home, a hole in the ground). 
> 
> Also, I'm really shit at being consistent re: replying to comments but pls know every single one makes me so happy i need to lie down for a little while

There were witches abroad in Ottery St Catchpole.

And a few wizards, for that matter.

They moved quickly and quietly through the silent streets in twos and threes, their footsteps scarcely making a sound on the damp cobbles, their breath barely misting in the cold night air. The sky was dark and empty of stars, and the moon was hidden behind the black clouds. Their wands lit the way ahead, bobbing and weaving through the rows of sleeping houses and shuttered shopfronts. They passed through layer after layer of the protective magic emanating from the hill on which the Burrow concealed, and the pressing silence was welcome in its reassurance that there were none present under false pretences. This was the witching hour; the time in the night when the sheep were asleep in the fields, when owls ghosted through the trees and cats stalked along high walls and rooftops. The air hummed faintly with power, the sacred gathering of a scattered coven.

Then Henry Bones slipped in some wet leaves and went down with a yelp, which kind of spoiled the vibe.

"For Merlin's sake, Henry," Valerie Abbott sighed, as if she hadn't done the exact same thing not ten minutes ago. She grabbed his hands and hauled him to his feet.

"Don't blame me, blame these damn muggle shoes," Henry huffed, shaking off Valerie's attempts to brush the leaf-mulch off his coat and hopping on one foot while he tried to scrape clean his shabby-looking brogues. "Who in their right mind makes shoes with slippery soles?"

"You could have chosen better ones," Harriet Vance told him reasonably, appearing out of the shadows with pants-shitting suddenness. Then, "Merlin wept, it's _me_ you jumpy gits, get your wands out of my face."

"Do you bloody mind not doing that?" Henry asked her irritably.

"I'm just saying, no one's forcing you to dress like a down-on-his-luck history teacher. Look at you, you've got elbow patches."

"She's got a point," Eleanor Johnson agreed, wandering up with Emmeline and Catriona in her wake. "Muggles make all kinds of shoes. Did you know they make ones _specifically_ for running in?"

"Really?" Valerie asked, impressed. "Wow. Why don't we have those?"

"How is it that everyone's suddenly an expert in muggle fashion?" Henry demanded. "Have you lot been talking to Ursula?"

"Talking to Ursula about what?" asked Ursula from just behind his shoulder.

There was a pause while they watched Henry recover, clutching his heart with the look of a man who dearly wished he'd just stayed home and taken over the family shop as planned. After a few moments, he straightened up and met their entertained grins with a glare.

"Least favourite food?" he asked through gritted teeth, knowing full well that the security questions were essentially redundant at this point but not particularly caring.

The others humoured him.

It had taken the Order most of the week to contact all their scattered comrades and get them rounded up, especially since most of them had spent the past few weeks either apparating far too many times a day (a practice which invariably caused significant strain on the nerves), or being subject to Ernie the Knight Bus driver's cruel and unusual braking habits (a practice not dissimilar to taking a bludger to the back of the head).

Things only got worse once the last stragglers arrived at the Burrow. The house was shaking dangerously with the amount of people thundering about, and the first thing they were greeted with in the entryway was the ceiling, as a mattress with four or five children on it came shooting down the stairs at a speed probably illegal in most inner-city zones. It barrelled straight into the newcomers and knocked them down like dominoes.

"Sorry, sorry!" Arthur Weasley shouted, charging down the stairs after them. "What have we told you about mattress surfing?" he barked after his children as they scrambled away in various directions, laughing hysterically. _"Martin Miggs is not a role model!_ Charlie! Bill! Come and take this back upstairs this instant!"

He was ignored. Arthur sighed heavily and allowed Valerie to help him wrestle the mattress up against the wall so the others had room to start picking themselves up.

"Shouldn't they be in bed?" Henry grumbled, pushing Ursula's foot out of his face and clambering out of Catriona's lap, and then staggering when they both used his coat to pull themselves to their feet.

"Ideally, yes," Arthur said, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. "All the chaos has them a little over-excited. Come on through, they're setting up in the living room. Oh, and mind the doorframe, it's rigged with a small explosive and we can't work out how to defuse it."

"Merlin, who did that?"

"Fred and George. Mad-Eye's been teaching them about defending against home invasions, and they've taken to it rather enthusiastically."

"I thought they were only three," Harriet said, confused.

Arthur looked at her with the sort of resigned dread usually reserved for environmental scientists and pessimistic soothsayers. "Yes," he said. "Yes they are."

They managed to file into the living room without setting anything off. The space was already at standing room only, with most of the available seats being taken up by exhausted off-duty aurors. Proudfoot was sprawled on the floor with the look of someone who had spent a full week wrestling hippogriffs, or possibly dealing with Ministry bureaucrats. Savage was giving her a shoulder rub. Even Kingsley, usually so efficient with his energy that the other junior aurors revered him as some sort of master of time management, was leaning against the arm of the sofa with drooping eyelids. Ursula did a double-take and went over to annoy him into sitting up straight.

"It's a bloody nightmare," Frank Longbottom was saying to the room at large, slouching forwards on the couch and digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. "We're barely getting any of the convictions to stick. Most of them are claiming Imperius, even Macnair and the Carrows, and we can't prove they weren't under the influence without the alleged spellcaster's wand, which of _course_ has mysteriously disappeared-"

"And the last of the loyalists are all holed up in unplottable houses," Alice added, suppressing a yawn. "We think they've been planning something in the Lestrange mansion, we were going to try and draw them out tonight, but-"

"Longbottoms! stop sharing classified information with the civilians!" Moody barked from across the room, making Alice jump.

"Sorry, boss! Won't happen again!"

"Constant vigilance, we know," Frank added hastily, recognising the expression Moody got when he was about to start ranting.

"Hmff," Moody grunted, and went back to staring out of the window, eyeing the horizon suspiciously.

McGonagall took the floor before anyone else could start commiserating and clapped her hands loudly. "Now that everyone is here," she said over the chatter. "We have a fair amount to get through, so we may as well get started. Miss Johnson, Misses Vance, if you'd please get everyone caught up with your latest intel?"

* * *

 Somehow, Sirius and Remus managed a whole week of trawling through Wales without making eye contact, trading off caring for Harry and speaking only when necessary. By the time they reached their last stop, a small town not far from the mountains, Sirius was completely closed-off unless interacting with Harry (who luckily was enjoying flying everywhere so much that he didn't seem too affected by their bad moods). Remus was exhausted from too many nights of fitful, interrupted sleep. Both of them were tense, miserable and more than a little pissed off by the time they managed to find a guesthouse and transfigure enough cash to pay for it.

"Can you please just fucking relax?" Sirius snapped eventually, the night before the full moon, after Remus jolted awake for the fourth time since she'd handed off the watch. "What _possible reason_ could I have for putting up with this shit for so long, Remus? If I was going to try something I would have done it by now, you _know_ that."

Remus growled in frustration and scrubbed her hands over her face. "Can't switch it off," she mumbled. "Just-" she put up a hand when Sirius started to say something else. "Just shut up, please. I know, okay? I fucking know."

Sirius glowered; it was easier to be angry that Remus wasn't letting go of her fears when she clearly knew they weren't rational than it was to be hurt by the lack of trust. She considered trying to state her case again, calmly and logically, but was distracted by Harry whimpering in his sleep and turning over. She spent a few minutes making sure he was settled before she looked back across the darkened room. She could just make out Remus' silhouette, sitting up in the narrow bed with her elbows propped on her knees, forehead resting on her crossed forearms. She looked completely drained. In spite of herself, Sirius felt a twinge of sympathy. This was starting to feel familiar.

"It's not just me, is it?" she guessed. "It's the moon as well."

Remus breathed out slowly and leaned back. Her head dropped against the wall behind her with a 'thud'. "Both," she admitted. "The moon's making everything worse, it's all - I can feel it-"

She cut herself off, screwing up her face and jerking her head as if trying to shake something loose. Sirius grimaced - she remembered the way Remus had described the feeling in the past, the way the wolf clawing to the surface inside her made everything feel too loud, too intense and invasive, like sandpaper on the senses.

She used to know what to do when Remus got like this. They'd figured out a system years ago, her and the others. James would crack jokes. Peter would make tea. Sirius would put music on. They'd all sit up together into the night, talking and laughing, playing drinking games or planning pranks for as long as it took for the tension to leave Remus' shoulders, for her to smile properly, for her to ignore the scratching in her head and focus on looking forward to the part where the four of them would let loose and raise hell tearing through the forest.

Of course, that had all gone out the window with everything else once the war had scattered them across different cities and hideouts and Remus started spending full moons with the werewolf packs she'd infiltrated. Sirius could only think of one thing that might work now, a small and pretty stupid idea that she couldn't quite dismiss. She turned it over in her head, weighing up the risks, measuring her anger against the desire to chase that warm, easy feeling she'd glimpsed before she slipped up on the train out of Manchester. The memory of it glowed like candlelight against the fog of grief and stress that surrounded everything else; small moments where they hadn't just been going through the motions, falling back into old habits because they didn't know how else to interact. For a minute there, it had been real.

_Merlin,_ but she wanted to get that feeling back. She wanted Harry to know what happy, functioning people looked like. She wanted the twisting sensation in the bottom of her stomach to go away. Even if it meant sacrificing some of her pride. Even if it meant being a little bit vulnerable.

She went back and forth for what felt like hours, but eventually made up her mind. She leaned over one more time to make sure Harry was properly asleep, tucked in safely with all his protection spells in place. She stood and double-checked the perimeter, the wards around the windows and door, ignoring Remus' questioning glance. Then, without saying a word, she slipped into her other form.

Padfoot climbed up on the bed next to Remus, nosed through the bedding and flopped down alongside her. This form always made it difficult to focus on details, but she heard the choked noise Remus made, half-laugh and half-sob. She felt a hand bury itself in the fur on her head. Her tail thumped briefly on the mattress, unbidden.

"I'm so fucking tired," Remus confessed quietly to the still air, her voice breaking just a little. "I'm tired of not trusting you. I want to sleep. I want my friend back."

Padfoot shifted her head so it was leaning against Remus' hip, a warm, solid weight. She made a small whuffing noise and hoped Remus understood what she was saying; _I'm here. I'm right here._

* * *

 The living room of the Burrow was unnaturally quiet. Everyone was staring at Dumbledore with expressions ranging from disbelief to annoyance to outright anger. He was standing at the front of the room with his hands clasped behind his back, looking thoroughly unconcerned.

"Thus, to recap," he was saying. "Based on the interrogations of Evgeni Rosier and Vincent Addle, and the additional information acquired by our friends in the auror department, it has become our working theory that Sirius Black's primary objective in abducting Harry Potter was not to deliver him to the Death Eaters. This is supported both by the fact that the remaining loyalists have been trying and failing to find and attack our fugitives since Halloween, and by the fact that Black's movements have not changed in accordance with the denial tactics now being adopted by the majority of You Know Who's followers."

"We are working under the assumption that, as Harry's legally-appointed godmother, she is instead concerned with the question of the boy's guardianship," McGonagall added. "Remus Lupin's negative reaction when I filled her in on the plan to grant custody to Petunia Dursley also offers plausible explanation for why the two have decided to work together despite their recent estrangement."

"In light of all this, we are turning our attention to the increasing likelihood that Peter Pettigrew has played a much larger part in this, ah, _fiasco,_ than previously thought," Dumbledore finished.

There was another lull while this sank in, until Ursula broke the silence.

"So what you're saying, professor," she said in a tightly controlled voice. "Is that we've spent the best part of a fortnight apparating all over the country, chasing down two scared young women who were only trying to keep their friends' baby safe? For the sole reason that you are _astoundingly terrible_ at respecting custody law?"

"That would be the long and short of it, yes."

"Right."

"Hang on, there's something I'm not understanding," Henry cut in. "If what you say is true and Black did pass the primary secret-keeper role onto Pettigrew, why wasn't this considered a possibility before?"

"Probably for the same reason Black would have picked him in the first place," Kingsley said, rubbing his jaw contemplatively. "She saw him as as trusted friend, but she also would have known how everyone else sees him - all of his tactics so far in this war have relied on him being underestimated and overlooked. The possibility that he could have been anything more than a bystander caught in the crossfire didn't even enter our heads."

"We were making assumptions which didn't allow us to explore every avenue," Dumbledore agreed. "But now perspective allows us to factor in Black's increasing paranoia, the fact that she has been near the top of the Death Eaters' kill-list since she joined up, her falling-out with Lupin... if she thought she was compromised, it would make sense that she saw Pettigrew as the safest option for a replacement secret-keeper."

"Wait," Alice Longbottom said, leaning forwards with a frown. "So far I've not heard any hard evidence to suggest that Peter was even involved in this, other than the fact that no one can find him and he has some dodgy informants."

"She's right," Moody said. "This is all circumstantial at best and outright speculation at worst. _If_ he's the traitor, we need some facts to work off."

"The facts are as follows," Dumbledore said. "Pettigrew has not returned to his last known hideout since around a week before the attack in Godric's Hollow, and has not checked in at any of his alternate rendezvous-points. We presumed that this was because he was dead, but we now know for a fact that he is alive. We also know that he was aware of an imminent attack in the week leading up to it, and that he has been paying his informants far better than the Order's budget or his own income would allow, indicating an alternate source of revenue. We questioned the goblin who handled most of Pettigrew's dealings at Gringotts and discovered that a significant amount of money was deposited into his vault by an unknown figure. Going by the goblin's patchy recollection of the transaction, we are almost certain that the imperius curse was involved."

"That still wouldn't be enough for a conviction, especially not with most of the Death Eaters denying everything left, right and centre," Savage said.

"We'd need him in custody and under the influence of veritaserum to get a confession that holds up in the Wizengamot at this point," added Frank. "And for that we need to _find_ the git."

"Ah, yes. We were afraid of that."

The aurors stared at Dumbledore with apprehension.

"What does that mean?" Proudfoot asked.

Dumbledore exchanged an uncomfortable glance with McGonagall, and cleared his throat. "It has come to our attention that Peter Pettigrew is an unregistered animagus," he said, to general uproar.

"Oh, _Merlin's balls,"_ Frank groaned somewhere in all the shouting. "What does he turn into? I bet it's a pigeon or something, we'll never find him..."

"That makes _so many things so much harder,"_ Proudfoot half-wailed, burying her head in her arms.

No one bothered to try and restore order. In the chaos, McGonagall sidled up to Dumbledore and murmured, "I take it we're staying quiet about the werewolf issue for now?"

"At the risk of spreading further alarm and despondency, that would be wise, yes," Dumbledore replied. "I think we would need Madam Pomfrey present as a character witness, and there's only so much of her annual leave she's willing to spend on our nonsense, as she puts it."

"And she's completely certain there's nothing to worry about? The full moon is _tomorrow,_ Albus."

"Poppy monitored every one of Remus Lupin's transformations over the course of her adolescence. If she says that Lupin would never even entertain the possibility of being in a position to endanger other people, least of all a child, I am inclined to believe her."

McGonagall sighed, but nodded all the same. In the background, the mayhem had subsided slightly. Molly Weasley had appeared at the sound of anguished groans and was taking people's tea requests. Alice filled her in on the situation while Henry took his time deciding if he wanted chamomile or something "proper".

"An animagus?"

"That's right. He's probably off hiding in a forest somewhere," Alice said miserably over the sound of Henry loudly debating with Valerie over whether or not it was acceptable to drink breakfast tea at night. "We're doomed."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Moody said, causing every head in the room to swivel in his direction. "If I were Pettigrew, I'd want to keep an eye on the situation, make sure no one was onto me."

"What, you think we'll just stumble across him trying to eavesdrop on the Burrow?" Savage scoffed. "Not everyone's as paranoid as you, Mad-Eye. Face it, if Pettigrew's the traitor, he's long gone."

Moody ignored him and turned to Molly. "Seen any strange-acting animals about?" he asked.

When Molly didn't immediately dismiss him, the rest of the room turned to stare at her. She was pursing her lips worriedly.

"What kind of animal?" she asked.

"A rat," Dumbledore said, watching her carefully. He saw it when her expression shifted.

"Right," said Molly, her voice slightly strangled, as if she were doing everything in her power to hold back a lot of horrified shrieking. "Right. Um." She swallowed. "Yes. You may need to talk to one of my sons."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I had a realisation while writing this chapter that i have a tendency to do a thing where i leave most of my chapters on cliffhangers leading up to events which i may or may not show onscreen, so like if anyone has picked up on this and feels like i'm doing a lot of planting with no payoff PLEASE tell me so i can STOP IMMEDIATELY, bc that's what steven moffat does and that guy is the smarmy car salesmen of writers. the history graduate's CV of writers. the bad comb-over of writers. 
> 
> (he's a liar. he lies with his fiction).


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up - it's possible bits of Remus' transformation get a bit kinda visceral (then again i might also be a wimp and really bad at descriptive prose but you never know) - just like, if that's the kind of thing that might gross you out then maybe skip the very end idk

The next morning was awkward. Remus woke to a bad cramp in her leg, which was pretty standard the day of the full moon, and a nostrilful of dog hair, which was pretty non-standard on any day of the week. She opened her eyes muzzily, and tried not to start too badly when she realised she’d faceplanted in Padfoot’s fur while she was asleep. She sat up hastily and stretched to conceal the movement when Padfoot looked at her.

The curtains were still closed, but there was enough greyish light poking through the thin material to tell her it was late morning at least. Rain was pattering quietly against the windowpanes, and Harry was already up and about, toddling around in his pyjamas and grabbing various objects from around the room so he could try and feed them to Padfoot.

“Yum!” he insisted, pushing Remus’ left shoe at her face.

“Think he’s hungry,” Remus observed, yawning hugely and noting with pleasure that her bones now felt slightly less like they were made of cement.

Padfoot made a grunting noise and gently nudged Harry backwards with her nose so she had room to stand and hop down onto the floor, shaking her fur a little as she went.

“Um,” Remus said, and Padfoot glanced back. Remus averted her gaze and stared down at the old, scratchy bedspread to avoid eye contact. “Thanks,” she said. “I… thanks.”

She wasn’t sure what else to say. The wolf was still growling away at the back of her brain, less overpowering after a decent night’s sleep but still making it hard to single out a specific thought from the mush of mixed-up emotions bubbling away in there.

Padfoot looked at her for a long moment, and then was very suddenly Sirius again. She sat on the edge of the opposite bed and ran a hand through her rumpled hair. Harry giggled.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

Remus nodded, picking at a hangnail on her thumb. She opened her mouth, ready to say something else – something about having meant what she said last night, about wanting to start trusting Sirius again, about needing some time to think without the moon pulling on her head. Before she could find the words, Harry dropped the shoe he was still holding on his foot and started to cry.

“Oh dear,” Remus said instead, and scooped him up to give him a cuddle while Sirius reached for the backpack.

“Definitely time for breakfast,” Sirius decided. “I’m pretty sure they’re still serving downstairs.”

“This one needs a change first,” Remus said, checking Harry’s nappy and making a face. “We should give him a bath at some point as well, it’s been a few days.”

Sirius dug a shirt out of the backpack and sniffed at it. “I can do it before I put him to bed tonight,” she said, and then paused to glance at Remus apprehensively.

Remus couldn’t answer. She forced herself to nod, and then reached for Harry’s changing stuff for something to do with her hands. Sirius didn’t move while she unrolled the mat and got Harry to lie down on it, hands clenching and unclenching around the t-shirt.

“What is it?” Remus asked when it became clear Sirius wasn’t going to move until she got whatever she was thinking off her chest.

Sirius frowned and bit her lip. “Do you,” she started, and then stopped again.

Remus got on with changing Harry, waiting for Sirius to catch whatever thoughts she had flying around long enough to put them into words.

“I was just thinking,” Sirius said at last. “About the trust thing, and about… um. Just, if there were a way for me to be there tonight – you know, as Padfoot – would it… help?”

Remus considered this carefully as she finished negotiating Harry into a clean nappy. “How would that work?” she asked. “What would we do with Harry?”

Sirius looked down. “We could go back to the Order,” she said. “They must have figured out by now that there’s nothing connecting us to the Death Eaters. They might have even caught Peter. We did say when we started out that this was just temporary, until we figure something else out. We could… I don’t know. Call a truce, or something.”

Remus stared at her. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you suggest backing down in a fight,” she said. “Just putting that out there.”

“I know,” Sirius grimaced. “Don’t know how you used to always do this, be all reasonable and whatever. It’s weird as hell.”

Remus almost smiled at that. “Took a shit-ton of deep breathing exercises and counting to ten in my head.” She grabbed the backpack and started looking for some fresh clothes for Harry. “I don’t think it’s worth the risk,” she said at last. “I mean, we’re hoping the Order’s figuring out what really happened, but we don’t know for sure that’s what they’re doing. They might still be tearing the country up trying to find us and send us off to Azkaban and Harry off to fucking Surrey.”

Sirius nodded. “I know. I’m mostly just thinking out loud, seeing if there’s another way to handle tonight. I know you’re still not, you know, okay with leaving Harry with me. Don’t,” she added when Remus opened her mouth to protest. “Don’t try and deny it, I know that face by now.”

Remus ducked her head and concentrated on trying to fit her words around what she was feeling. “It’ll take time,” she said. “I’m still… the part of my brain that’s yelling at me for being a naïve moron, it’s all mixed up with the part of me that wants to trust you. Not listening to the second part’s fucking miserable, but it’s… the first part’s still really fucking loud, you know?”

“I know. It’s okay,” Sirius said, although her neutral tone didn’t really match her face.

Neither of them said anything else while Sirius changed her shirt and Remus got Harry dressed. She set him up on the empty bed with some toys and books, and then sat back against the one opposite that Sirius was sitting on, ignoring the way the creaky metal frame dug into her back.

“It wouldn’t be worth it,” she said again after a while. “You transforming with me. Even leaving out all the shit with the Order. Right now, it just… it wouldn’t work the same, not without Pete, and… and without…”

She broke off to swallow, but the words still got stuck behind the lump in her throat. She pretended not to notice Sirius wiping at her eyes in her peripheral vision. They both stared across at Harry by way of distraction. He was chattering away to himself as he flapped the pages of one of his books. The concealment charms on his forehead needed refreshing – his scar was starting to show again, completely healed but still enough to break the illusion that he was just a normal, happy toddler whose biggest problem was that his copy of Mr Bump was missing a few pages.

“He already looks like him,” Sirius murmured, her voice wavering a little with unshed tears. “He’ll have the same hair.”

Remus nodded, clenching her jaw to stop her face crumpling. “Not the eyes, though.”

“No. Her eyes,” Sirius agreed. She clutched at the edge of the mattress until her knuckles started to turn white.

Remus found herself reaching up at the same time Sirius reached down; their fingers met and hooked together, warm and dry and grounding. She squeezed once, briefly, and felt Sirius squeeze back.

“If I don’t need to worry about you,” she said quietly. “Then you don’t need to worry about me.”

They sat like that for a long time, until Harry got bored and decided they needed to be reminded about breakfast. Repeatedly, and at great volume.

* * *

“WHY are there SO MANY GNOMES?” Proudfoot bellowed to the heavens, hopping backwards on one foot while shaking the other leg frantically, trying to kick loose the creature that had attached itself to her shin. _“Gerroff_ you horrible potato with eyes, Savage will you STOP LAUGHING and BLOODY HELP ME.”

“I thought aurors were meant to be professional,” Ursula said mildly, watching from the edge of the field while she and Alice picked their way along the hedgerow, looking for hiding spots that might suit the average animagus-on-the-run.

“I mean, define professional,” Alice replied absently, using one hand to run through a series of detection spells and the other to untangle her cloak from where it was caught on a knot of overgrown brambles. “Are you _sure_ this is where you found him, Percy?” she added, turning back to where Percy Weasley was following, flanked by his mother and Moody, looking far more pleased to be in a position of authority than any five-year-old should.

He nodded importantly. “I’m sure,” he said, adjusting his glasses and looking around again. He pointed at a hole in the top of the hedge. “That’s where the bludger went through ‘cause Charlie hit it too hard and they sent me to get it ‘cause I wasn’t playing propler – proplerly.”

“Mad-Eye, this is pointless!” Savage called from the middle of the field.

“Stop questioning my orders and keep casting barriers, Savage!” Moody shouted back. “And Proudfoot, stop complaining! No one likes a whinger!”

“I’ve got _holes gouged in my shin!”_ Proudfoot protested, but went back to her assigned task of blanketing the field in dormant animagus-revealing spells, in the hopes that Pettigrew, likely unable to go too far from the Burrow without running the risk of getting lost or eaten, would stumble across one of them and simply pop up in human form.

No one was particularly optimistic about this approach working; a full morning of methodically combing over every inch of the Burrow and its garden, slowly working their way out into the surrounding fields with no success, was starting to put a damper on everyone’s spirits. This was not at all helped by the sleep deprivation, or by the freezing drizzle that had started up around nine and persisted as the day dragged on.

“I don’t think I want to be an arorer anymore, mummy,” Percy told Molly seriously, watching as Moody turned his attention to the next field over, noticed that Frank had fallen asleep standing up against the hedge he was meant to be searching, and stormed off to yell at him. “They’re always tired and cross.”

“Don’t worry Percy, we’re not like this most of the time,” Alice said encouragingly. “We’re just a little stressed right now, because _OW MOTHER OF-”_

Ursula, Molly and Percy watched dispassionately as Alice stumbled away from the hedge, cursing under her breath.

“Bloody nettles,” she grumbled.

“Get a nice office job like your father, darling,” Molly advised Percy as Ursula rolled her eyes, grabbed Alice’s hand and did a couple of healing spells. “You’ll be much happier in the end. No standing around in the rain searching for dangerous criminals.” Then she glanced back towards the Burrow and sighed; there was purple smoke coming from the chimney. “Do you still need us out here? Arthur’s signalling, he needs help with the children. They’re probably tearing the house apart, not being allowed to come and help like Percy.”

“I’m sure it’s all fine,” Ursula said uncertainly. “They’re a lovely bunch, really. You and Arthur ought to be very proud.”

Alice swung right back into cheerfulness and nodded brightly. “Frank and I were just saying we should bring Neville around for a playdate, once this is all over,” she said. “There aren’t any other children for him to play with at Frank’s mother’s house, it’d be nice for him to make some friends.”

Molly smiled tightly. “I'm sure that'd be lovely,” she said, and hurried off towards the Burrow without another word, herding Percy in front of her; there were noises coming from the house that sounded awfully like a crate of Dr Filibuster’s Fireworks had been set off.

“I forgot you’ve got a kid as well. How old is he now?” Ursula asked as she and Alice went back to searching. 

“Fifteen months,” Alice said proudly. “Already starting to talk – he can say ‘gam’ now, according to Augusta’s last letter.”

Ursula frowned. “Is that a word?”

“Yep, Uncle Algie looked it up. It’s the collective noun for a group of whales.” Alice beamed. “My Neville’s a _genius._ ”

“Impressive,” Ursula said, and silently made the decision to never procreate.

* * *

The day went by slowly enough that Harry was in a strop by afternoon, bored and restless and probably picking up the anxious energy Sirius and Remus were putting out. Somewhere around his third tantrum they decided enough was enough and took him outside, after some careful transfiguring to change their hair and clothes again.

It was still misting out, not to mention cold in a horrible damp way that made Sirius’ bones shiver, but Harry seemed happy enough charging around in his tiny anorak and wellies on the green (which was more of a brown at this point, what with it being mid-November in Wales), making broomstick noises and occasionally stopping to get excited over passing dogs.

“Woof!” he yelled, pointing at a nearby terrier so enthusiastically that he lost his balance and landed on his knees in the mud. “Woof!” he added when Sirius bent to haul him up.

“That’s right, woof,” she agreed, and sent him toddling off in a different direction, trying to not look too disgruntled that Harry got as excited about other dogs as he did about Padfoot as she and Remus followed him at a more sedate pace.

Remus squinted at her. “You can’t transform out here,” she said, like she could read Sirius’ thoughts. “You stick out too much, and these seem like people who actually care about the ‘please keep your dog on a lead’ signs – they’d call the RSPCA on us or something.”

Sirius ducked her head. “It’s just been a while. I forgot how fun it was. Harry was so excited when he saw me this morning, it was nice. He could do with some excitement that doesn’t involve running for his life.”

Remus sighed and glanced around. She spotted a knot of bushes at the edge of the green, and nodded to it. “You could probably do it behind there, when there’s less people about,” she said.

“Knew it. You’re as bored as I am,” Sirius grinned, triumphant.

Remus shrugged, making the face she always made when she was trying to look more annoyed than she was. “It’ll be good for Harry. This is the most exercise he’s had since all this shit started. And I can watch your backs, in case someone manages to get past about twenty-three different layers of protection spells.”

Then she paused, looking like she wanted to say something else.

“What is it?” Sirius asked. She reached for the top of Harry’s head as he ran past and gently turned him around so he wasn’t aiming for the pavement.

“I was just – I was thinking,” Remus said. “About what you said before, about this being temporary.”

“Yeah?” Sirius frowned, not sure where this was going.

Remus pushed her hair away from her face for a moment, looking contemplative. “We can’t keep doing this – the moving every other day, sleeping in hostels, living out of a backpack, especially now it’s getting so damn cold. It’s not good for him. He needs some stability. A proper bed.”

“What’re you saying?”

“I’m saying… I think once tonight’s out the way, we should find somewhere. An empty house or something, where we can hide out for the winter.”

Sirius thought this over. On one hand, she could see a whole host of things that could go wrong. On the other hand – this was Remus reaching out. Trying to trust her again.

The knot in her stomach loosened for the first time in weeks.

She tried not to smile too hard as she weighed up the pros and cons.

“I… you’re right, this isn’t sustainable. But you know we’d be more vulnerable to tracking spells that way. And there’s no one we can trust enough for a fidelius.”

“I know,” Remus grimaced. “But we can still cast wards and everything, make ourselves unplottable, set up our own defences. People have managed to stay hidden without a secret keeper in the past.”

Sirius noticed Harry suddenly turn and make for the edge of the green again, so she dodged into his path and caught him. She took a minute to think under the guise of brushing some of the mud off his clothes before she let him trundle off to inspect the gazebo in the middle of the grass. They followed him; Remus watched him climb up on the wooden platform with sharp eyes, ready to catch him if he slipped, which gave Sirius another moment to get her opinions in order.

“I think,” she said after a few minutes. “I think that we’re going to have to face the Order eventually. We can’t keep running from them forever, and we can’t put all our expectations on them figuring out the truth for themselves. And when we do finally face them, it might be good to do it on our own terms. Our own ground. Make it clear that we’re only interested in protecting Harry.”

“So that’s a point in favour of the house, then?”

“Yeah.”

Remus nodded. “Okay. So that just leaves the issue of the murdering fascists in the room.”

“Yeah, I’ve got nothing on what to do about the Death Eaters,” Sirius agreed. “We’re so far out of the loop we might as well be in Fiji. I reckon before we make any decisions we need an idea of how many are still loose, and of them how many are still fighting.”

“I think we can bank on a ton of them having abandoned ship as soon as Snake Fucker kicked the bucket. Not exactly comrades-in-arms, that lot.”

“Almost definitely. But some of them – if they haven’t caught Bellatrix yet, we’ll be really fucked. She’d stop at nothing to get to him if she thought it'd get her some vengeance.”

They both cast an anxious glance at Harry, needing to reassure themselves that he was still there, still okay. He looked up at them and held up his hands proudly; they were totally covered in mud. He clapped them together, giggling at the sound of it. Sirius let out a long breath.

“He’s fine,” she said, mostly to herself. “He’s fine.”

They both moved closer to him anyway.

“If Bellatrix and the other fanatics are still out there,” Remus said slowly. “We might end up needing help, if we want to stop running any time soon.”

“I thought you said going back for help was a bad idea.”

“Not – I’m not saying we should _go back_ -go back. But what if we found a kind of middle-ground?”

“Go on.”

“You said yourself when I told you about McGonagall not supporting the Dursley plan, that we might be able to use that. What if we went directly to her?”

“She’d never lie to Dumbledore for us.”

“No, but I bet she’d mediate.”

Sirius mulled this over. “She’d definitely prioritise Harry’s safety,” she said. “If we proved to her that he’s safest with us, that might be enough for them to call off the hunt and offer protection while we make our case about Harry’s custody.”

“Especially now they’ve had a few weeks to confirm we’re running from the Death Eaters as well as them.”

Sirius hummed contemplatively. “Okay. Let’s make a plan tomorrow. Try and find out the situation with the Death Eaters, get our hands on some newspapers or a radio or something. See if we can figure out if the Order’s caught on about Peter. Then from there we can start making decisions. Nothing much else we can do right now, I think.”

“Thank fuck,” Remus mumbled, rubbing her eyes. “If I had to do any more thinking I reckon I’d start crying brain matter.”

“Have a sit down,” Sirius told her, nodding to the damp bench inside the gazebo that Harry was failing to climb on. “I’ll transform and run around with Harry for a bit – maybe keep your wand out, just in case. Then we can find a café and have tea, get your strength up for later.”

Remus gave her a weak smile and plonked herself down on the bench without bothering to dry it off, while Sirius jogged off across the green to duck behind the bushes. A few moments later, Padfoot emerged; Harry shrieked excitedly and went running to meet her, as far as a one year old in wellies _could_ run. He only fell down a couple of times.

* * *

It was late afternoon by the time Moody finally called it a day and let everyone go home to get some sleep. Frank and Alice apparated into the alley behind the Indian takeaway across from their house, exhausted enough that neither of them bothered suggesting they get some dinner before turning in. They leaned against each other as they rounded the corner and froze as soon as they came into view of their street.

It was completely swarming with aurors. They were everywhere; coming in and out of houses, clambering around on the rooftops – Frank even spotted one scaling the plane tree on the corner. There were also a few setting up muggle traffic barriers around a large hole in the middle of the road. The reason quickly became clear; there was a dark mark cast over their house, staring down over the street with empty eyes. A couple of the aurors appeared to be trying to get rid of it, to little avail.

“What the fuck?” Alice mumbled, rubbing her red eyes. “Are you seeing this too?”

Frank nodded mutely, watching Daniels from the Recollection Management Division slowly make his way down a long line of muggle neighbours, probably modifying their memories.

There was a shout from behind, and Frank found himself being grabbed and wrestled to his knees. Alice was brought down next to him.

“Oi! What the fuck?” she repeated indignantly, trying to twist around to see who was holding them. “Harris and Fisher, is that you? What the hell’s going on?”

“Sorry, Longbottoms,” Harris said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “There’s been an incident, we need to make sure you’re really you.”

“Who the fuck else would we be?” Frank scowled.

“The boss will explain,” Fisher assured him with what was probably meant to be a friendly pat on the shoulder, although it was somewhat belied by the unnecessarily painful armbar.

“The boss?” Alice said apprehensively. “You mean-?”

She was cut off by the sharp tap of terrifyingly shiny shoes approaching. They looked up to find Bartimaeus Crouch standing over them, looking his usual combination of pissed off and badly constipated.

“Alice Longbottom,” he said in that icy way of his. “Where were you sent on your fourth covert mission? Who were you sent there to meet, and why?”

“Uhm – Dover. The, uh, the headquarters of the smuggling ring that was using the channel tunnel. I met a goblin called Rissik. His boss was trying to sell goblin-made artefacts to some Veela in Calais, he wanted to make a deal – information in exchange for the artefacts being returned to the goblin community.”

Crouch didn’t react, just turned on Frank. “Shortly after your last promotion, you were sent to liaise with three undercover aurors who had important information to share with the department. Where did you meet them, and what codenames were they using at the time?”

“They were, uh, Rook, Moth, and, um, Beetle. I met them at the Sorcerer’s Elbow Inn just outside Wolverhampton.”

Crouch nodded, satisfied, and stepped back. “You may release them, but keep them at wandpoint,” he told Harris and Fisher, who complied.

Alice and Frank got to their feet, trying not to look too indignant in the face of Crouch’s utter lack of concern for their bruised knees and egos.

“Sir,” Frank said. “Hate to be rude, but what in the name of Merlin’s left arsecheek is going on?”

“Definitely Frank,” muttered Harris, sounding relieved.

“Your home was attacked by Death Eaters last night,” Crouch said shortly. “You are incredibly lucky that you weren’t here.”

Frank felt himself blanch and reached for Alice at the same time that she staggered into him, hanging off his arm for support. Terror clenched in his chest like a fist as the implications of Crouch’s words sank in.

“What about the rest of our family?” Alice asked, sounding like she’d been punched in the gut. “Our son, where’s our son? Where’s Neville?”

“Your son is safe,” Crouch said, and relief crashed over Frank like a tidal wave. He blinked, dizzy with the emotional whiplash. “The Death Eaters did not find your family’s secondary hideout – it appears that their intel only went as far as this address.”

Alice buried her face in Frank’s shoulder. _“Thank you, thank you, thank you,”_ she chanted quietly.

Frank put his arm around her and held on tight. “What about our neighbours?” he asked. “Was anyone hurt?”

“There were no casualties, but four muggles were subject to the cruciatus curse.”

Frank closed his eyes. “Fuck,” he whispered.

Alice straightened and dragged her hands over her face, wearing the expression that meant she was pushing down her emotions to focus on the matter at hand. “What happened, exactly?” she asked.

“Piecing everything together has not been easy, but we have the gist of it,” Crouch said. “Around midnight last night your home was invaded by a group of four Death Eaters. According to witnesses, they broke down the front door and started ransacking the place. When it became apparent that no one was home, they cast the dark mark and then began attacking the neighbouring houses. They were then stopped by five more Death Eaters who apparated in, apprehended them and forced them to disapparate.”

“Fucking Merlin,” Frank said, looking around again. “How much damage?”

“It has taken the best part of the day to rebuild the houses and repair the damage that can’t be explained with muggle logic. The muggles who were attacked are in a highly traumatised state and have been transported to St Mungo’s for treatment. The other witnesses are to be informed that there was a gas explosion, once Daniels has finished removing their memories of the real incident.”

Alice was staring up at the dark mark. “They’re infighting,” she said. “Disagreeing on tactics. Their whole organisation is coming apart.”

“It would seem so, yes,” Crouch confirmed. “Descriptions of the perpetrators are somewhat lacking, but we are fairly certain the attackers were of the Lestrange faction. What we don’t know is what exactly they were looking for.”

“We might actually be able to help you there, sir,” Frank said. “We have some new intel you might be interested in. It’s to do with the Potter case. And Sirius Black.”

Crouch’s expression shifted minutely. “You will share everything you know,” he said. “But first – the department has seen fit to put you and your family into official witness protection. If you’ll follow me.”

With that, he turned and marched back towards the Longbottom house. Frank and Alice followed with Harris and Fisher in their wake.

“I can’t tell if witness protection is a good thing or not,” Alice said.

Frank shrugged. “We might get to see Neville. And maybe also get some bloody shut-eye at last.”

“Lucky bastards,” Fisher said from behind.

* * *

“You’re sure you’ve got everything?”

“Yep.”

“And that the bag’s watertight?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re _sure_ you know where you’re going?”

“Sirius.”

“Sorry. Just.” Sirius bit her lip, watching Remus tighten her arms around Harry a little and rock him side-to-side, eyes shut.

The weather had gotten worse – it was raining properly again, the wind was picking up, rattling the canopy over the guesthouse entrance above their heads. It was only early evening, but the sky was almost completely dark.  

“Just be careful,” she said. “Don’t forget where you put the clothes or, or get lost and die of exposure or anything, okay?”

Remus opened her eyes at that and smiled a little. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “I have done this before. Like, a lot.”

“I know,” Sirius said. “Still.”

Remus nodded and looked up at the sky. “I should go,” she said. “Moonrise soon.”

She gave Harry one last squeeze and a kiss on the head, and then passed him back to Sirius. She picked up the carefully-sealed plastic bag at her feet.

“Send a patronus if something goes wrong,” Sirius told her, perching Harry on her hip and letting him lean against her shoulder, tired from all the running. “I don’t care if it’s 5am and there’s a hurricane touching down. I’ll sort out something to keep Harry safe. I’ll come and help.”

Remus smiled again, small and a little anxious, but definitely there. “I know. I will.”

She tightened her grip on the bag as if making to leave, but then paused again. She stared at Sirius, and Sirius stared back.

Sirius frowned slightly. “What is it?”

Remus abruptly moved in and hugged her. Sirius only had time to register Remus’ bony arms around her and Harry, tangled hair in her face, the barest hint of her smell – cigarettes and damp wool and rain – before Remus pulled back again and, in the same movement, disapparated with a loud _crack_.

Harry snuffled sleepily and tugged on Sirius’ coat collar. Sirius, staring blankly at the space where Remus had been seconds before, shook herself and remembered what she was meant to be doing.

“Right. Bath time for you, young man,” she said, and ignored how her voice was shaking, just a little.

She hitched Harry up so she was holding him better, and headed back into the warmth of the guesthouse. Behind her, thunder rumbled through the clouds and the rain fell harder than ever.

She buried her face in the top of Harry’s head and kept walking, determinedly resisting the urge to go chasing after Remus and pull her back into the warmth as well.

* * *

Remus screwed up her face against the gale as she used her wand to dig a deep enough hole out of the heavy wet soil to stash her bag of supplies for the morning. It was shaky work; the moon’s pull was getting stronger by the second and the wind buffeted her from all sides in spite of the cairn she was hunching next to by way of shelter. She stowed her wand away in the bag, re-sealed it and shoved it down into the ground. Then she straightened up and used her feet to refill the hole, kicking the overspill into a tightly-packed mound and adding a few rocks to mark the spot.

The clouds were dark and heavy so she didn’t see it when the moon rose, but she sure as fuck felt it – like a bucket of cement being tipped over her head, making everything slow and too heavy, making the wolf in her snarl in protest and finally, finally claw its way to the surface. She staggered away from the cairn and stumbled down the hillside, slipping on the soaked grass as her bones started to crack and shift under her skin and _fuck, fuck, it hurt so fucking much_ –

“Harry is safe,” she rasped, forcing herself to believe the words even as her voice stretched and slurred horribly with her changing vocal chords. “Harry is sa-afe, Sirius is ss-safe, they’re warm and dry, aaannd…”

She heard herself whine, pitiful and pained and far too high-pitched. The wind blasted through her hair as it roughened into coarse grey fur, made her eyes water as the last of the colour drained from the world; the smell of the rain and the mud was overpowering, too many scents overloading her brain as it struggled to catch up with her body, all the human in her draining away like a fistful of sand, until –

Moony threw her head back and howled with the wind. In the distance, across the mountains, something howled back.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (ok YES I took a giant detour to save the Longbottoms i am weak, there's only so much depressing shit i can handle writing abt ok)


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